


Up a Tree

by betawho



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Adventure, Alien Planet, Gen, Mystery, scifi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-25
Updated: 2017-01-26
Packaged: 2017-11-02 12:00:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 31
Words: 94,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/368763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betawho/pseuds/betawho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor, Amy, and Rory land on a human colony world where the colonists live in gigantic trees. A whole city in the treetops. </p><p>But what starts out as a lark, ends with a murder, an ancient mystery, and  a local race of "not quite intelligent" spider-monkey-like creatures that might have a <i>reason</i> for not quite being intelligent.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"This is nuts," Rory said. "We're in a tree!"

Amy and the Doctor stepped out of the Tardis to discover they were indeed in a tree. A tree that would make any redwood of Earth look like a mere seedling.

The Tardis had materialized on the end of a branch, the branch was large enough that it formed a pathway in front of them. The Doctor leaned sideways and looked down, the ground was thousands of feet away.

Alien birdsong sang all around them, the breeze was laden with the smell of greenery and mold, bark crunched under their feet, the wind rustled the leaves that were everywhere, above and below them.

Amy grabbed him. "Be careful!"

Her snatch set him off balance. He windmilled before Rory grabbed them both and yanked them to the center of the branch.

"Ho! What are you doing here? You can't park that thing there, you're obstructing traffic!" a voice yelled.

A man in a grey-green coverall trotted up to them as if he was on a sidewalk.

The Doctor looked down and realized the top of the branch was worn smooth, proof of the passage of many feet.

"Hello!" he said cheerfully, holding out a hand to be shaken. "I'm the Doctor. Sorry about the Tardis, we didn't exactly expect to land here."

The young man shook his hand and nodded politely to Amy and Rory. "Biologists are you?" he asked. "Well, you still can't park your transport pod here. You'll need to check in with Deran, come on, I'll take you to him. Watch your step."

He turned and walked away, matter of factly, as if he wasn't striding off down the branch of a gigantic tree like some sort of human squirrel. Amy and Rory stared at the Doctor in consternation. The Doctor just rocked on his heels cheerfully and waved a hand at them, "You heard the man, let's go!"

They followed the coveralled man along the branch, the tree limb was actually about 10 feet wide, with a level path down the center. They weren't in any danger of falling. But every little gust of wind made Amy clutch onto Rory, he kept a tight grip on her hand.

The Doctor skipped along in front of them like he was having a grand time. His head craned this way and that as he took in the rich web of branches and tree limbs all around them, the turquoise alien sky beyond the leaves, and the panorama of unbroken jungle stretching far below.

The young man in front of them took a fork in the branch that connected to a larger branch. There were obvious signs of human habitation here. A bit of handrail, a path more obviously leveled and maintained, the bark smoothed down into a distinct road. Amy looked down and saw the number 27 carved into the wood of their branch at the side of the path.

"How long are you on planet for?" the local asked conversationally, turning around and walking backwards to hear their answer. Amy squeaked and wished he'd turn and watch where he was going, he could walk right off the branch and never notice.

"Don't know," the Doctor answered, stuffing his hands casually in his pockets. "We just got here. Long enough to look around anyway."

The man nodded as if that was normal. "Well, in that case, welcome to Yblis!" He spread his arms wide, and Amy didn't know if he did it on purpose or not, but he timed it perfectly. They walked out of a screen of leaves and Amy's mouth fell open.

"Oh my God," Rory said from beside her.

The towering bole of the tree rose before them, three city blocks away and a thousand feet thick. It rose up endlessly above them, and receded thousands of feet below. And the whole thing was swarming with people.

Walkways, platforms, and spiral staircases had been built right out of the wood of the great tree. Swinging bridges connected branches, and covered archways showed where shops and homes had been carved out of the living trunk of the tree itself.

Sunlight glanced down through the branches, streaming spotlights of golden color over the scene, dustmotes dancing in the light.

And everywhere were people. Normal looking humans, all going about their own business. A man walked along carrying a crate of fruit on his head. A teacher shooed a gaggle of children across a platform. Men in coveralls scampered here and there on various tasks, bouncing across the rope bridges and weaving in and out among the traffic up and down the spiral stairs, the stairs apparently made by ramming huge timbers of wood into the bole of the tree.

Railings were rare, everything seemed to be very open and Amy found herself holding her breath, just waiting for someone to go plunging to their deaths.

Their self-appointed guide grinned at their expressions and waved a negligent hand. "This way." He turned and led them onto a semi-circular wooden platform built out of the side of the tree. He bypassed a couple of carved-in shops and led them to a staircase at the edge of the platform that curved down around the side of the bole.

Each step was a massive timber, fourteen feet long, rammed directly into the tree. No railing, no handgrips, just the massive tree rising up on one side and endless empty air on the other. There were clouds floating below them.

Amy and Rory kept close to the treetrunk, hands gripping giant ridges of ancient bark as they edged down from one riser to the next. The Doctor and their guide bounced down the stairs happily. Locals dodged around them as they wove their way up and down the stairs, apparently oblivious of the drop below.

The view was incredible. Amy and Rory looked at each other. Endless leagues of alien tropical jungle spread out to the horizon, the strange call of alien animals and birds muted by the wind, but giving a sense of verdant life.

The giant tree seemed to be the exception rather than the rule. The didn't see any others this size from their vantage point. All the other trees of the forest were much smaller, tiny in comparison, although Amy bet they were good sized trees in their own right.

The wind, once they got used to its constant tug, was cool yet comfortable. The air smelled incredibly clean, green, and dusty with bark.

"Doctor," Amy said. "Where are we?"

"Yblis," the Doctor said happily, head still swiveling, trying to see everything at once.

"And where's Yblis?" Rory asked patiently, inching down to another riser.

"No idea, never heard of it." He turned and grinned at them, his eyes sparkling, completely thrilled. "I can't wait to find out."


	2. Chapter 2

Rory stepped down with relief onto another large branch that formed a wide platform, the stairs continued on beyond the other edge.

There was a table and chairs set out on the deck, above the endless drop, like they were on someone's back patio.

Their guide trotted over to a doorway cut into the bole of the tree, two arch shaped windows were carved on either side of it. He stuck his head in.

\----------

"Deran! We've got visitors. Some more biologists, they parked their transfer pod out on NE J 27, it's blocking traffic."

Amy looked in over his shoulder to see a typical office; desk, chairs, file cabinets, but the walls were carved directly out of the wood of the tree. An extremely fit looking middle aged man, with auburn hair to rival her own, stood up from the papers he was perusing on the desk. "Is it stable?" he asked. Amy noticed he had silver wings in his hair at the temples and was really quite good looking, in a roughhewn sort of way.

"Looks like it, but it's blocking the path."

"You're the only one who ever goes out there, Steve. Just leave it for now and go around. We'll deal with it later." He turned and looked at the newcomers. Steve shrugged at them and ducked back out the door, leaving them at the mercy of the official.

"Hello!" the Doctor said with his usual cheerfulness, holding out a hand. "I'm the Doctor, these are my assistants, Amy and Rory." He pumped the man's hand jovially.

"Deran Sondherson," the man replied in a mellow voice. "Security administrator." He looked around at all of them, taking in Rory's puffy vest and Amy's shorts and tights. "We weren't informed of your arrival."

The Doctor waved it off. "Bit of a last minute thing. We just couldn't wait to see your wonderful planet!"

Sondherson stared at him as if he'd had far too much experience with enthusiastic scientists. "Well, you're here now.”

He pulled down a large ledger from a shelf on the wall and opened it up. He slid it to the Doctor over the table. "Just sign here, and we'll get you set up."

“You weren’t notified of our arrival, but you’re expecting us?” Rory asked.

Sondherson looked at him. “Our standing arrangement with Neale Biological College provides us with fabricators on a yearly basis, in exchange for room and board for any groups of biologists they send our way.”

The Doctor nodded as if he knew all this, pulled out a pencil and jotted his and Amy and Rory's names down with a flourish.

Sondherson took it back and stared at the signatures. "Just, 'the Doctor?'" he asked, laying a finger on the Doctor's signature.

"Yes, well, we're here a bit on the QT. Very hush hush," the Doctor improvised.

"Looking for the next big miracle drug no doubt," Sondherson guessed.

"Can't say," the Doctor shrugged nonchalantly and rocked on his heels.

"Why do you live in a tree?" Rory asked, waving a hand behind him at the endless unoccupied forest. "Surely it's not safe up this high. Why not just carve out a city on the ground?"

Sondherson turned from slipping the ledger back on its shelf, he stared at the Doctor at this elementary question. The Doctor shrugged. “Intern.”

The administrator explained patiently, as if Rory should know this already. "Because the jungle's too dangerous, all the predators on this planet are larger than we are."

Amy interrupted. "What are those?" she asked, from the doorway, pointing. She'd been watching the people come and go outside.

Sondherson sauntered over to where she stood leaning against the door jamb. He ran his eyes appreciatively over her long legged form. She smirked flirtatiously back at him. Rory rolled his eyes, but walked up behind his wife.

Amy wandered outside, the others followed. The top of the giant branch formed a small plaza in front of the office, not as big as the large platforms, but it seemed to get a lot of through traffic.

By watching the come and go of the villagers, Amy had noticed that every person, young or old, wore some type of one-piece, from dock-worker like coveralls, to more refined looking business suit versions, to more casual short sleeved or sleeveless versions, long legged, or shorts, she even saw some kids in unitards. But every single version had an extra panel of fabric on the back, over the shoulder blades.

"What are those?" she asked, pointing.

"Chutes," the man said.

Rory raised his eyebrows.

Sondherson smiled. "We do live in a tree," he reminded him. "Sometimes there are emergencies and we need to reach the ground quickly." He went to the edge of the branch and pointed. They followed his finger to a man on a lower branch. The man casually walked to the edge and jumped off.

Rory gasped, Amy grabbed his arm in surprise. The Doctor smiled.

The back of the man's coverall billowed open with a snap to form a rectangular parachute. The man steered it with his sleeves and by shifting his weight. He floated down the tree bole, curving slightly around it on the air, and dropped lightly down onto another branch. He shrugged and his chute retreated back into the panel on his back, sealing as he trotted unconcernedly away into a tree bole store.

Now that he knew to look for it, Rory could see other chutes deployed here and there among the branching network of the tree. Some were a utilitarian grey-green, blending in with the background. Others were as brightly colored as butterflies.

"Ohh," said Amy. "I want one."

Sondherson grinned, then frowned and leaned backward to stare at her back. "Good god! You don't have chutes!" he said, horrified, as if he'd just noticed. "Tell me you're wearing antigravs," he said desperately, looking them each over as if searching for something.

The Doctor shrugged. "Nope."

Sondherson growled and pulled at his hair with one hand. "I thought you people were scientists! Haven't you ever heard of _gravity_?" He stomped over to his office and started rummaging in a cabinet. He turned and pointed a finger at them through the door. "Don't move!" he ordered, sternly.

The Doctor raised his eyebrows but didn't say anything, he stuck his hands in his pockets. Not moving. Rory just nodded vigorously, keeping a firm hand on his wife's arm. Amy grunted.

The wind seemed determined to remind them of its presence. Ruffling the Doctor's jacket and rippling Amy's shirt.

Sondherson came out a few minutes later. He was holding a stack of "Visitors" jackets over his arm. They even had the word "Visitor" stenciled on the back over the chute panel.

"Here, put these on," He passed them out, then showed them how to strap the leg braces around their legs then clip them back onto the belt in front. Fortunately Amy was wearing her Rio shorts.

"Get a lot of neophytes do you?" the Doctor asked, looking a bit rumpled as his tweed jacket poked out of the lines at odd angles.

Sondherson finished helping Rory with his clips. "Too many, best to be prepared."

"Quite right," the Doctor tried to settle his visitors jacket more comfortably, with no success.

Something swung down out of the foliage above them, flashing past like a panther on the strike, and thumped down on the windowsill of Sondherson's office.

Amy screamed a little, Rory jumped. Sondherson turned around and looked, "Hello, Chitchi," he said casually.

The creature on the windowsill cocked its head, staring at them with glassy, curious, animal eyes.

It looked almost like a spider monkey, but with extremely long arms and legs. It wasn't covered in fur, but some sort of suede, smooth and velvety, except for rough patches here or there that looked like tree bark. It was brown, the same color as the tree, and with its longjointed branchlike arms and legs it would be virtually invisible in the tree.

"What is that?" Rory asked. The creature's unusually long limbs made it look unnatural, they were almost twice as long as its body. Yet, at the same time, it was obviously a very natural creature. It had the softly round-muzzled face of a monkey, but it didn't have any tail.

"That's Chitchi, he's one of the Trelwins."

"Indigenous lifeform?" the Doctor asked, fascinated. He was leaning forward, peering at the creature as it clung-sat on the windowsill which was actually too narrow for it. The creature looked back, it had the full brown eyes and flat expression of an animal. Yet it studied him back just as curiously as he did it.

It held out a long hand for him to shake. The Doctor shook it with a delighted smile. "Hello," he said gently. The creature cocked its head the other way, studying him, then abruptly swung off back into the trees, ruffling the Doctor's hair with the speed of its departure.

"Are those your pets?" Rory asked.

"No," the man answered, "Trelwins are too independent for pets, but they're not dangerous, and occasionally they help."

"Intelligent?" the Doctor asked.

The man shrugged. "We've never been sure. Our best guess is that they're on the cusp of becoming sentient."

The Doctor nodded, then frowned and sniffed. "Does anyone else smell cherries?"

Rory inhaled and frowned. "Yeah." His eyes went huge and he looked around at the foliage. "Good god, imagine the size of the cherries!"

Amy stared at him, then burst out giggling, imagining a cherry as big as his head.

Sondherson shook his head at the visitor's antics. "Charley!" Sondherson grabbed a speeding eight year old by the arm as he darted past. "Go tell Emma I've got some pupils for her."

The boy, as redheaded as Sondherson, nodded and sped off.

"Pupils?" the Doctor asked.

"If you're going to be staying here, you have to learn how to use your chutes. I'm not having you fall to your death on my watch."

"Wait," Rory went pale. "You're going to make us _jump_?"


	3. Chapter 3

"Doctor, can't we just go back to the Tardis?" Rory said. "They're going to shove us out of a tree!"

"We are _not_ going to shove you out of the tree," Sondherson said. "But if you don't want to follow our safety precautions, you're welcome to leave."

They were standing on a giant tree limb, thousands of feet from the ground. Leagues and leagues of empty air all around them beyond the branches.

"Doctor..." Rory pleaded.

"Rory..." Amy said in a hurt voice, looking at him as if he'd betrayed her.

Rory crumpled at the disappointed look in her eyes. "Fine. But if we fall to our deaths, don't say I didn't warn you."

"Don't be so glum," the Doctor said. He pirouetted, his arms wide. "Just look at where we are!" The leaves rustled in counterpoint, the wind soughed past, and Rory saw a Trelwin peeking at them from between the branches.

"Come on, Rory," Amy cajoled. She bumped him companionably with her shoulder.

"Don't you want to look around?" the Doctor asked, eyebrows innocently elevated. "It's not every day you find someplace like this. Believe me, I've looked." He stood there, his tweed jacket jammed haphazardly under his visitor's jacket, his hands in his pockets, leaning forward entreatingly.

Rory rolled his eyes, outnumbered again. "Yes, yes. Fine. Whatever."

"Yes!" Amy squealed, practically dancing.

"Well, if you're all decided. I'd prefer you wait in my office until your parachute instructor arrives." Sondherson herded them back into the safety of the tree bole.

—————

Rory had expected the office to smell like sawdust, or shaved wood, but it didn't. The room had obviously been hewn out of the tree, the lines and grain of the tree was clearly visible in the walls, but it looked nothing like paneling. The heartwood walls had been smoothed down, and apparently coated with some sort of sealant or varnish. It didn't smell like a growing tree, but like well cared for old furniture.

Outside, one of the Trelwin climbed down the tree bole, upside down, hands gripping the ridges of giant treebark. He peered in the top of one of the windows, dark eyes studying the strangers.

"How long has the colony been here?" the Doctor asked as he leaned comfortably against the administrator's desk. Rory slumped in the one chair and Amy took up her post at the door again.

Sondherson looked back and forth between them all in disbelief. "Didn't you read _any_ of the orientation material?"

The Doctor shrugged. "I prefer to get my information first hand."

"Yes, well, 'first hand' can get it bitten off on this planet." Sondherson hitched a hip on the edge of his desk and prepared to give them the lecture.

"Yblis was colonized 300 years ago when our ancestors' colony ship was drawn off course through a wormhole to this uncharted system. They weren't able to get back through the wormhole, the ship wasn't designed for it, so they headed for the temperate fourth moon of this system's supergiant, the next planet out. Unfortunately, they crashed here instead.

"It was two generations before our distress call reached the homeworld and they developed wormhole capable craft and could send us aid. By that time, this was home. Fortunately, we found valuable resources on this world that would allow us to maintain some trade, such as pharmaceuticals. Hence our arrangement with Neale Biological College and your presence."

The Doctor nodded sagely, "How many people live on Yblis?" he asked. Sondherson answered, and it led to the inevitable more questions. Rory started looking glassy-eyed from information overload. Amy stared out the window at the incredible vista, and all the people streaming past.

—————

"What's this I hear about pupils?" said a voice from the doorway.

They all turned their heads.

The woman who stuck her head in the door was hugely fat, completely round, had a winsome smile, iron grey curls, and the arms of a lumberjack.

"Ah, Emma," Sondherson said, sounding like a man gaining a reprieve. "We've got a new group of biologists here, someone forgot to teach them the basics," unvoiced went the weary word, _again_.

The Doctor grinned at her, at Sondherson's disgusted tone. Emma grinned back. "Come along then, children," she said, waving a meaty arm, "Let's go see if you've got any tree legs."

"That's our parachuting instructor?" Rory said quietly from several stairs farther down as they followed the large, energetic Emma up the stairs around the curve of the tree. Amy, in front of them, noticed the woman had a reinforced panel sewn across the bum of her wide coverall. She supposed that made sense, the straps would pinch more on a heavier person.

"Rory!" the Doctor hissed, frowning at him severely, "That's not nice. And besides it makes complete sense. Greater mass means greater stability in the air. She can probably fly rings around you."

"That wouldn't be hard," Rory said morosely.

They followed their elderly instructor up the stairs around the curve of the tree. They got another surprise when they rounded the curve.

She led them up onto a broad public plaza of a platform. Amy's mouth fell open and she looked up, and down, and all around like a child at Christmas seeing the worlds largest Christmas tree.

They were in a huge atrium. There wasn't one giant tree, but three.

The three gigantic trees formed an interweaving network of branches and bridges, forming a cavernous protected atrium at its center. Sunlight speared down the huge shaft. Semicircular platforms sprouted out of all three trees like some sort of gigantic tree fungus.

Shops were cut into all three trees with beautifully carved covered archways. They debouched onto the busy plazas built of planks. Colorful pots filled with flowers edged the plazas and windowsills. And the atrium was so far across that no one could throw anything from one plaza to the next, yet was near enough that people could yell back and forth.

She saw two people casually floating down through the center of the atrium on their parachutes, the gaily colored chutes looking like drifting flowers, before their owners landed deftly on a platform and trotted off about their business.

"This way!" Emma waved them across the broad deck, the Doctor followed, turning to walk backward as he bent over and peered into the shops, trying to see what he could see. People were going about their daily routine, a mother and son shopped for normal looking apples in a bushel, a tall, white-haired man wandered past, muttering to himself in some absorbing thought, a pale, slate gray Trelwin ambling along beside him.

The Doctor spun back around as he heard Rory's "Eep!" and found Emma waiting for them at the mouth of a rope bridge at the edge of the platform. Rory gulped, looking down over the edge at the deep well of space below them. The green at the bottom was so far away it was misty. But at least the platform had a slightly raised edge a few inches high, things couldn't just roll off.

Somehow that little lip wasn't at all comforting.

"Over you get now," Emma said, waving all three of them across. "Classroom's on the other side."

Amy bounced happily out on the rope bridge, eager to get started.

Rory stepped forward and Emma reached up and thumped him ungently on top of the head with a heavy thumb. He stared at her in shock, scalp stinging, he rubbed his head. "What was that for?!"

"I'm fat, young man. But I have excellent hearing. You watch your manners."

He gulped. "Yes, ma'am."

She nodded, her face was fleshy, but her grey eyes were sharp. "On your way now," she nodded him across the bridge.

Heart gripping the back of his throat, Rory grabbed the rope railings tightly and edged out onto the shivering bridge, determined not to prove a coward in front of this woman.

After a few steps he felt the Doctor join the bridge behind him. "Don't look down," he muttered to himself. "Don't look down." Misty nothingness peered up at him through the slats in the bridge.

Amy bounded along ahead of him, setting the bridge to swaying. "Don't look down, Oh god, we're gonna die, we're gonna die," he muttered to himself.

He felt the Doctor's hand on his shoulder and almost jumped out of his skin. He craned his neck backward to look at the Time Lord, the bridge swaying alarmingly beneath him.

"It's all right, Rory. I don't like heights either," the Doctor said, smiling faintly.

"Why not?" Rory said, trying to get his heart back down out of his throat.

The Doctor looked down, studying the depths. "I once fell to my death from a lower height than this," he said, matter of factly.

Rory's skin shivered. "That's not helping."

The Doctor looked back at him. "Just keep going, don't look down, you're halfway there," the Doctor said.

"Great," Rory muttered. "I'm turning into Donkey from Shrek."

"Just keep going," the Doctor said. Rory could hear the grin in his voice.

"Yes, Shrek."

He felt the bridge sag as Emma stepped on it behind them. He gripped the rope rails, cold sweat popping out under his shirt. His heart stuttered, fearing the rope bridge wouldn't hold all of them. But then, surprisingly, he realized the footing was firmer underneath him. He walked faster as she kept tension on the lines, and he bolted off the end of the bridge feeling like he'd just run a marathon. Amy gave him an exuberant hug. She was enjoying this.

—————

Emma took them to an area off to one side of the main atrium. In a lee of the main shaft, a smaller shaft was formed by side branches, nets had been strung between several of the lower branches, forming a huge net bowl. Eight stories down.

They stood on one of the "smaller" side branches, only twenty feet in diameter. It was obviously used as a staging area for parachute school. The top of the branch was worn level and wide, a small office was carved in the bole of the tree at the head of the branch, its door polished smooth by the brush of many young hands.

Emma finished giving them an obviously well-rehearsed safety speech, showing them how to tighten their jacket straps and demonstrating the use of the "screamer button" sewn into the collar of the jacket, which could be activated with their chin in case of emergencies.

Every local in the main atrium stopped and stared when the Doctor tried his. It was very loud.

"As you can see," Emma yelled over the piercing noise as the Doctor fluttered to turn it off. "We're all trained to respond to that sound." She showed him how to turn it off, and all the locals, seeing no falling bodies, and apparently used to the sound coming from the training branch, resumed their tasks.

Amy grinned at the Doctor. He flushed and straightened his bow tie.

"Now," Emma said, lining them all up against a line carved at the edge of the branch. "Just jump forward to clear the branch and thrust both hands forward to deploy the chute. Don't try to land, just let yourself fall into the net, you can crawl out. We'll practice landing once you've gotten the hang of the chutes. One at a time now," the very fat older woman instructor told them stepping back.

Rory looked down dubiously at the nets several stories below them. "Are you sure those are secure?" he asked.

"This is what we use to train our own children. We're not likely to be lax about the safety nets."

Rory nodded, trying not to give offense.

"Me first!" Amy said, practically skipping. She wiggled her chute down comfortably over her shoulders and suffered patiently as the instructor checked and tightened it one last time, giving instructions all the time.

"Steer with your hands and your body weight. Trust the chute to support you. Relax and keep calm..."

Amy nodded, bouncing on her toes like a little girl. The Doctor grinned watching her, seeing the Amelia in her peeking out.

"Be careful!" Rory admonished.

"Piece of cake," Amy said. And jumped.

Rory gave out a little involuntary scream and clamped his mouth shut. Amy's chute deployed, popping out elegantly from the placket at the back of her shoulders.

She floated down serenely, turning this way and that, getting the hang of the device. Rory could hear her whooping from here. He shook his head and grinned resignedly at his daredevil wife.

"You next or me, Rory?" the Doctor asked, watching Amy indulgently.

"It better be me," Rory said, tightening his shoulder straps. "I'll never hear the end of it if I turn lily-livered now."

Both men watched as Amy swirled down toward the net, and both men gasped as her chute collapsed on one side. The culprit gust of wind blew up at them, forcing them backward on the branch.

"Amy!" Rory screamed. He watched helplessly as his wife floundered, rocking, falling faster, suddenly the chute billowed out full again. She was jerked up, slewing toward the edge of the net. She tried to correct and turn back toward the center, but overcompensated and flew out over the other edge of the safety net, away from the atrium, nothing beneath her but sharp branches and thousands of feet of empty air.

"Amy!" the Doctor roared. He sprinted down the length of the school branch and launched himself off the end, aiming for a lower branch from the next tree. If he could get far enough out, he could get ahead of her, deploy his own chute and knock her back into the safety net.

He fell toward the next branch, ready to catch and swing himself upright on the smaller branches above it when he felt long, strong hands grab him under the armpits. He looked up in surprise and found one of the Trelwins had caught him in its lower hands.

The Trelwin, Chitchi if he was any judge, grabbed the smaller branches he'd been aiming for and slung him up onto the nearest large branch. The Doctor landed with a grunt. He pushed himself up, waved a hand behind him in gratitude, "Thank you!" and sprinted forward. He could still see Amy below him, leaning hard on one side of her chute, trying to turn it.

She wasn't looking where she was going and hit a smaller, especially green branch with a resounding crunch, sprawling over it and half disappearing in the foliage. She was three stories below him.

The Doctor pelted down the spiral staircase rammed into the tree and bolted out onto the branch Amy was on. And ran smack into a small wiry man. They both went down in a tangle of limbs.


	4. Chapter 4

"Sorry, Sorry!" the Doctor said as he scrambled up, trying not to knee the smaller man in the stomach. He could see Amy starting to flounder among the leaves out on the other end of the branch. Fortunately the branch was large enough to support her, a good eight feet in diameter. And her chute had retracted, so she wasn't in danger of being snatched off the branch by a stray breeze.

But there was something funny about the foliage here. It was a low mass, huge rosettes of large crinkly green leaves, quite unlike the tree leaves.

"OI!" The man beside him yelled out as she floundered, ripping and tearing at the leaves as she tried to gain her feet. "Don't trample the lettuce!"

The Doctor turned to stare down at the little man beside him. He was old, wizened, tough looking, and was wearing a faded green coverall (complete with chute) and a wide brimmed straw hat.

The Doctor looked back to see that the strange foliage was actually row after row of closely planted heads of lettuce, all growing directly out of the tree bark.

"Amy!" he yelled through cupped hands. "Don't move. Keep still! Just hold on and we'll come get you!"

The thrashing red shirt half buried in lettuce leaves relaxed and grew still, virtually disappearing among the foliage.

"I assume there is some way to get her?" The Doctor asked the short man beside him.

"'Course." The man looked him up and down, tweed jacket, bow tie and parachute. "You're new."

"Biologists, just came to see the planet. I'm the Doctor," the Doctor held out his hand. The small man shook it with a casually iron grip.

"Axel. You'd think biologists would have better respect for crops," he said with the lament of farmers everywhere.

"Sorry, no one told us about the chutes," the Doctor said.

"Wouldn't be the first time," Axel said.

"Oi! Little help here!" Amy yelled from the end of the branch, booted feet kicking in empty air.

"Right! Sorry. So what do we do?"

Rory and the instructor came panting up beside them, having taken the less daredevil route. "How are we going to get her out of there?" Rory asked. Seeing his wife floundering at the end of the branch, buried in green.

"Just reach up, above you there, Doctor, and pull down that lanyard. We'll have her out of there in no time. And maybe save my lettuce a beating while we're at it."

The Doctor looked up to find a guyline had been strung along the top of the branch, he pulled down the handles on the wheeled rotor and watched as Axel snapped his harness onto it.

The little man zizzed out over the top of his produce, feet up out of the way and stopped above Amy. He gave her some instructions that the Doctor and Rory couldn't hear. She climbed to her feet carefully and the little man swiveled in his harness and wrapped his legs around her waist.

"What's he doing?" Rory said, stepping forward aggressively.

"He's helping her," the Doctor said, laying a restraining hand on Rory's arm. "Watch."

Amy laid her hands along the farmer's coveralled shins and stepped forward gingerly, walking carefully down an invisibly narrow path between the vegetables. The little man zizzed along above her pulling himself along hand over hand, helping her keep her balance.

Amy stumbled out of the garden onto the wider surface of the branch, the little man unwound his legs from around her and she launched herself into Rory's arms. Her husband hugged her fiercely.

The little man casually unclipped his harness and dropped lightly to the branch. "There you go. Safe and sound."

—————

"Don't _do_ that to me!" Rory whispered fiercely into Amy's red hair.

Amy thumped him on the shoulder irritably, "I didn't do it on purpose!" she grouched. She was still shivering, and clutched him tightly.

The Doctor grinned, reassured that she would be fine. He left her to Rory and knelt and examined the edge of the line of lettuce at the front of the branch. The heads were a good two feet across, with plater sized leaves layered all around. He brushed the outer leaves up out of the way and saw the leaves were rooted directly into the tree bark.

Axel knelt down beside him. 

"Fortunately, the facilities of the colony ship survived and we were able to adapt our foodstocks, alter them to grow parasitically."

"So," the Doctor said. "They draw their nutrients right from the tree? The tree draws up the water and nutrients from the soil and the crops grow from that? It's like hydroponic gardening, only not wet! I love it!"

"Would you like a tour of our farms? I figure a biologist might be interested," Axel offered, waving a hand to encompass a large section of the outer branches. The Doctor stood up. There were nets and guylines strung all around the outer branches, making it look like some sort of giant spider's paradise. And there were some very strange looking vegetables growing out of the branches.

The Doctor craned his neck and stretched up on his toes in excitement, trying to see everything. " _Would_ I?" He jittered, looking back to Emma, then back to Axel, then back to Emma, then back to Axel again.

He grit his teeth in indecision, then cocked both forefingers at Axel. "I would love a tour, but I think this incident proves we'd better learn how to use our chutes first. Can I get a raincheck?"

Emma's scowl dropped away and she nodded in approval. Axel glanced at her, then nodded at the Doctor. "That'd be fine. Nice to meet a practical biologist for once."

Rory snorted. The Doctor scowled at him.

—————

"Come along, then," Emma said, shooing them back in front of her again, up the stairs, "I know that was scary," she said to Amy. "But the best way to get over the fright is to get right back in harness."

"Isn't that supposed to apply to horses?" Rory said, keeping a protective arm around his wife.

"Tell you what, ducks. You want to hoist a horse up here, the same rules will apply to him."

Amy burst out laughing, the last of the tension draining from her shoulders. She gave Rory a peck on the cheek. "She's got you there."

The Doctor breathed a sigh of relief to see Amy relaxing again. He turned and gave Emma a grin. She winked at him.

—————

The Doctor and Rory climbed the spiral stairs back to the school branch. They'd managed to actually land on the walkway that rimmed the catch net this time. Rory was taking the practice with grim determination, determined to learn how to use the chutes safely. The Doctor was just larking around for fun, he already know how to use a parachute.

Rory would never admit it, but as irritating as the Doctor's whooping and showing off was, it was reassuring to have him there right alongside him. Which he figured was why the Doctor was shadowing him. Yet it was strangely even more encouraging when Rory landed neatly, and the Doctor was the one to land and almost fall backward into the net.

Amy stayed above, waiting her turn, and yelled down advice and cheered when he got something right. It hadn't taken her long to shake off her fear. Amy was never scared of anything for long.

When they got back to the training branch they found the atrium in an uproar. People were streaming down the stairways, and a regular flotilla of chutes were drifting down from the levels above.

"What's going on?" the Doctor asked. Emma just shook her head. She quickly led them back to the main platform by a shorter route, going across a solid branch bridge this time, and found Sondherson just struggling up the stairs against the flow of traffic.

"Emma! Do you have any idea what's going on? All I'm getting are garbled reports," he asked.

Emma shook her head. Amy found herself dodging tree dwellers who were running for the stairs, everyone was yelling, but no one was making any sense.

Steve, the young man who'd first found them, ran up and ran into Emma's back, he bounced off. "Sorry Emma!" He panted as he dodged around her, he saw Sondherson. "Deran! Treecat! Up on B E P 2!"

Sondherson swore. "How the hell did it get up there without us noticing?!"

Steve shrugged, looking pale. "Don't know, maybe it snuck up during the night."

Sondherson shook his head. "Nevermind. Go get Erik and his crew, tell them what's happening. Is it attacking anyone yet?"

Steve shrugged. "I don't know, I was checking the chargers and saw the Trelwins sweep by in a wave, I turned and saw it. I didn't stay to see what it was up to."

Sondherson patted him on the shoulder. "You did right. Go get Erik." The boy, which Amy realized wasn't much older than her, took off.

"Treecat?" the Doctor asked.

"One of the local predators." Deran gritted his teeth and ran his hands through his hair, eyes anxiously scanning the treetops. "It's mostly outlying residences up there. I hope they got barricaded in."

"Can we help?" Rory asked.

Deran looked down at him. "Not unless you have experience hunting big cats."

Rory shrugged. "I've taken down a lion or two in my time."

Amy gaped at him. "You never told me that!"

Rory shrugged again. "It was a long time ago."

"How dangerous are these things?" the Doctor asked, his deep eyes scanning the treetops as well, looking for any sign of a disturbance.

"Lethal," Deran said, "if they get into a populated area. With any luck we'll be able to knock it out of the tree before it does any harm. Then I'm going to flay whoever was supposed to be on bolewatch last night," he gritted to himself.

The Doctor and Rory shared a glance at that statement. Their cogitations were interrupted by four men charging up the stairs. They were dressed as big game hunters, camouflage fatigues and lots of pockets, and were, unbelievably, armed with spears, nets, and bolos.

"You've got to be kidding me!" Amy said. "Where are the guns?"

The lead hunter, a huge bison of a man with heavy shoulders and arms looked at her. "Guns are no good in a tree miss. You're as likely to shoot clean through your target and hit some poor innocent on the other side of the tree. He shrugged one heavy shoulder, which was draped with a large rough net. "These work just fine if you know what you're doing."

He turned and looked at Emma. "Mum, you'd make me feel a deal safer if you went below."

The heavy parachute instructor nodded. "You be careful!"

The burly hunter wrapped her in a hard hug, then released her toward the stairs. One of his men, a lean strappy fellow, was already running across the rope bridge. The area was empty, everyone had retreated below.

"I suggest you three head below as well," Sondherson said, nodding at the Doctor, Amy, and Rory. "Hole up in my office, bar the door and shutters and don't come out until one of us says it's safe."

"I'd quite like to see this Treecat," the Doctor said. He held up a hand before Sondherson could protest. "I'll keep out of the way, but you might find me useful. I have some experience in this sort of thing."

Erik spoke up. "No offense, stranger, but this is no time for flatties. Shale will get us a bead on the cat," he nodded after his scrappy comrade who had shinnied his way quickly up the tree from door archway to window frame like a Trelwin, taking the direct route. "We need to take care of it quick, We've got no time to be nursemaiding you."

Before the Doctor could protest there was a roaring snarl from above, loud enough to reverberate off the treetrunks, it was followed by a piercing scream. It sounded like a child.

"Come or go, but stay out of the way," Deran ordered, wasting no more time. He scooped up a grappling hook and rope and thundered off over the bridge after Erik.

Rory scooped up a spear and started to follow. Amy grabbed him, "Rory! You can't!" she protested. "You're scared of heights!" she pointed out, trying to find a reason why not.

Rory gave her a hard kiss. "So's he," he said, nodding at the Doctor who was already halfway across the bridge. "Somebody's got to look out for him. Emma," he turned and shoved Amy toward the larger woman, "please take care of my wife." Emma grabbed Amy before she could lunge after her husband. Amy struggled as Rory sped off, for once not looking down as he ran across the bridge. Her struggles were no match for the larger woman.

There was another roar from above and Amy blanched. Emma pulled her toward the stairs. "There's nothing you can do to help but get to safety, child. Come on. We'll wait in Deran's office. It's closest."

Amy continued to pull against Emma's grip until they hit the stairs and its endless drop. She only stopped because she didn't want to risk making them fall.

The roars above turned to snarling screams.


	5. Chapter 5

The tree was unnaturally quiet. A cool, moist breeze blew, a cloud passed over the sun, trailing shadows. No birds sang, no people talked. It was as if the place was abandoned.

Except for the snarling.

—————

The Doctor and Rory bolted up the massive stairs of the next tree.

"You do realize," Rory said. "If that thing decides to come down this way, we'll have nowhere to go?"

The Doctor nodded. "That's no doubt why the hunters all took different routes."

"Good thing we learned to use the chutes, then," Rory muttered. The Doctor gave him a wry smile, and noted the way Rory carried the spear in a casual, balanced grip.

They crept up the stairs, careful to keep close to the trunk, staying hidden behind the curve as long as possible, just in case they did encounter a treecat on its way down.

The other hunters, including Sondherson, had swarmed their way up the tree climbing straight up the trunk, (there were apparently hand and footholds carved in the tree if you knew where to look) or by working their way around on the intertwining network of branches, trying to surround the treecat before it sensed them.

By the time Rory and the Doctor arrived, the Yblins were already closing in.

The cat, when he finally saw it, was exactly what the locals had described, but nothing Rory had expected. It did have the body conformation of a cat, looking like a muscular panther or jaguar, but instead of fur, it was covered in the same suedy covering as the Trelwins.

It’s hide was a mottled green brown, which made it hard to see in the tree when it crouched still. It was only the flick of its tail that gave it away.

It was fourteen feet long.

Rory crouched down behind the large limb they'd been peering over, suddenly the spear in his hand seemed like a very fragile weapon.

The Doctor was peering over the branch, eyes gleaming. "Beautiful..." he muttered to himself.

"Says you," Rory whispered back fiercely. Personally, he’d rather be holed up in Deran's office.

The cat snarled again, and the sound ripped across Rory's skin, making him flinch. He peered back over the branch.

They'd found a conveniently sturdy knot of branches to watch the action from, the smaller limbs twined around each other here to form a bit of a concealing nest.

The cat was on a larger limb 30 feet away. It was edging forward and back, almost pacing, too large to turn on the branch it was on. It had some sort of prey backed up onto a smaller branch on its other side. Rory couldn't quite make out what it was, but the cat was slashing at it with determined persistence.

The deep-chested rumbling of the thing gave it a weight and immediacy that spanned the gap and made Rory’s monkey-brain want to jibber and run away.

Rory ignored the instinctive shaking in his muscles and looked up to see the other hunters, including Erik and Sondherson, work their way out onto higher branches, surrounding the beast. Beyond them, gray clouds rolled in over the evening sky.

As they watched, Erik edged his way out onto a small branch overhead, the slender limb bent slightly under his weight. Rory caught his breath as he heard the wood crack. Erik grabbed a nearby branch for balance. The hunter shrugged his shoulder, took a grip with his free hand and cast his net.

The heavy, weighted net spread and fell in a perfect arc, falling with a whump onto the treecat's head.

The cat snarled and bounced in surprise at the weight of it, its clawed back feet slipped on the bark and Rory gritted his teeth, hoping it would fall. But the cat shook its head, and with a sharp twist of its neck hooked the edge of the net in its teeth. With a yank it threw the net off. The net spiraled down through the branches, getting caught on the points of the branches farther down.

"Probably used to dealing with vines in the jungle," the Doctor muttered to himself.

"You're enjoying this!" Rory accused.

"Well, just look at it!" The Doctor said, waving an admiring hand. "Have you ever seen anything as magnificent?"

An image of Amy on certain energetic mornings flashed through Rory's head but he shook it off. "No comment." The cat, across from them, went back to ignoring the hunters and tried to step out again on the small branch where its prey was evidently hiding.

"What's he got trapped over there anyway?" Rory asked.

"Dunno. Let's go see," the Doctor said, waving Rory along the branch nearer to the action.

"Me and my big mouth," Rory grumbled.

They shuffled down the branch, climbing up and around through a tangle of branches from the next tree that allowed them to circle the treecat's branch. Rory's foot slipped and he cursed, bark shredding and whirling away underneath them. His heart pounded in his chest.

"Take your shoes off," the Doctor said.

"What?" Rory said in disbelief, hunkering down behind a screen of leaves to stay out of the cat's sight.

The Doctor pointed to the other hunters, who were positioning themselves for another try. One threw a set of bolos that completely missed and sailed off into the tree beyond. Another threw a spear that thunked into the limb below it. The cat ignored them.

"Look at their boots," the Doctor said. He sat down on the treelimb and started untying his boots.

"Are you mad?!"

"Just look at their boots, Rory."

Rory peered out over the leaves at the other scattered hunters. They were all wearing leather boots, but their boots didn't have rigid bottoms. They were more like leather socks than boots. He watched as Sondherson "pussyfooted" his way along a branch, the flexible soles giving him more purchase on the curved bark.

"Okay, I see your point." Rory quickly shucked off his shoes and socks, stuffing his socks in his shoes and slinging them around his neck by the shoelaces, the same as the Doctor was doing.

Great, I'm hunting a giant leopard in my bare feet. He thought to himself, scrabbling back to a crouch, his bare feet flinching at the feel of the rough tree bark underfoot.

"That's what he's after," the Doctor said, once again parting the leaves and staring down at the larger limb beyond them.

The treecat had cornered a Trelwin out on the smaller branch. The longlimbed apelike creature was backed out as far on the smaller branch as it dared, it was guarding something that it had apparently stuffed around the base of an upright branch, blue-green material fluttered around the short limbs that dangled down around the branch on both sides, barely balanced.

"Is that a boy?" Rory demanded.

"Looks like."

The treecat stepped one massive paw out on the branch, the branch bent under its weight. Thwarted, the cat slashed out at the Trelwin with its other paw, claws raking through the air, less than an armlength from the Trelwin's refuge.

The Trelwin, a gray and brown one, spotted like a pinto pony, was hurling leaves and twigs at the giant cat's face, stripping the branches around it for ammunition. If it had actually been a monkey it would have been screeching, but the action all took place in eerie silence, only the cat's frustrated snarls rending the evening.

"Why don't they do something?" Rory demanded, looking around at the hunters. Deran and Erik were apparently having a tense conference at a knot of branches slightly up and across from them.

Shale had retrieved his bolo and was working his way around underneath them, apparently trying to find an angle for a clear shot.

"They have to be careful, Rory. If they jar that branch too hard, the boy will fall. And look down there." the Doctor pointed down, and Rory looked down through the stories of branches to see a couple of platforms and a rope bridge far below them. "They need to either stop the cat up here, or move it somewhere where it’s not going to fall on anything."

"So it’s a stalemate."

"For now." The Doctor got a wickedly fanatical look in his eye. "How do you feel about being bait?"

"NO! I just got married! I'd like to live to enjoy it."

The Doctor pulled out the sonic screwdriver and Rory's stomach dropped. He knew that look.

The Doctor stood up and waved his arms, drawing Sondherson's and Erik's attention. He mimed pointing at himself, at his sonic screwdriver then pointed out toward the smaller branches, away from the bole and the more inhabited areas of the tree.

Sondherson got a horrified look on his face and frantically waved back a negative.

The Doctor gave him a cheery thumbs up.

"This is not a good idea," Rory said.

"We're just going to give it a little siren song," the Doctor said, holding his sonic up to his ear and tuning it. "Just enough to make it wonder where that lovely music is coming from."

The Doctor flicked on the sonic, the end turned green, a soft, almost subsonic hum wafted past Rory.

He looked down. The treecat froze as it swiped at the frantic Trelwin. The cat’s ears laid back as if in puzzlement. Its head cast around.

"See, it’s working," the Doctor said.

The treecat’s lips pulled back over huge teeth and it roared in pain. It looked up, spotted them, and leapt.

It landed with a crash right on the bole of the tree beside them, huge claws ripping strips in the tree as it slid backward under its own weight.

It was cutting off their retreat.

It started raining.

The tree bark darkened and slickened, Rory was suddenly grateful for his bare feet, although he didn't know how long that would last.

The treecat snarled and scrabbled with its back feet, ripping chunks out of the tree, it got enough purchase and jumped, scrabbling its front paws over the branch they were on and pulled itself up.

"Uuuhhh!" The Doctor's excitement turned to panic. "Run. That way!" He pointed one long bony finger beyond Rory, toward the outer tree limbs.

Rory didn't need any encouraging, he spun and ran, he could see the hunters converging around them, trying to get in position to help. He heard the cat scramble onto the limb behind them, felt the branch bounce under its pouncing weight.

"Faster, Rory!" the Doctor yelled. "There! There!"

Rory turned just long enough to see the Doctor, the cat only a few lengths behind him, pointing at one of the cross branches where the third tree's branches intersected this tree's, forming a small bridge. He scrambled forward, the treebark scraping his feet, misting rain coating his face and hair. He stopped and whirled, pushing the Doctor up onto the higher crossbranch ahead of him.

"Rory! What are you doing?" the Doctor yelled.

"Just keep going!" Rory gathered his nerve, set himself into his balance and threw his spear. The javelin sliced through the air, hitting the cat right on the eye socket, but it flinched aside at the last moment and the spear slid up over the eye ridge, slicing along the skull and gouging a split out of the ear. The cat reared back and screamed, snarling, swiping a huge paw over its bloody face.

Rory didn't wait, he scrambled up onto the cross-branch and pushed the Doctor ahead of him.

"That was brilliant, Rory!" the Doctor said, impressed.

"Yeah, yeah," Rory said, still pushing. "Glad you're impressed, but I think I just pissed him off."

Another roar behind him, confirmed that diagnosis, and the branch under them shuddered. He risked a glance over his shoulder, the crossbranch was too small for the treecat, but it had both front feet planted on the branch end where it crossed the larger one, pushing it, sliding it aside.

"Move!" Rory yelled. The wood jittered sideways under their bare feet.

They jumped off the other end of the branch into the other tree just as the branch gave with a huge Twang! Slipping off its rest on the other end and lashing back with a huge sweep of smaller branches.

The Doctor turned back just in time to see the cat swept off the branch by the backlash of smaller branches, leaves exploding everywhere.

The cat fell, yowling like a siren, and slammed down on the next major branch, the branch rising up between its legs, slamming it firmly against the ribcage with a huge hollow sound, like a melon breaking. Rory winced in sympathy.

"That's stunned it." the Doctor said, crouching on the branch, long toes gripping the bark like he was a barefoot boy at some circus show.

"You could have got us killed!" Rory yelled.

"Oh, don't overreact, Rory,” the Doctor said, waving it away. “It got him away from the boy."

Below them the cat rumbled a huge breath, showing it wasn’t dead. It raised its heavy head and shook it.

"Still, no point in staying around here," the Doctor said with sudden alacrity. He started skipping along the bark, almost tiptoeing with tender feet. "We need to get him out in the open, there's too much cover in here, it’s all branches and leaves. They need a clear shot.'

Rory couldn't agree more, anything that got him farther away from the huge cat was a good idea in his book.

Using less than subtle persuasion he grabbed the Doctor's arm once they reached the bole and dragged him along a narrow boardwalk around the the more slender bole at this height. It was apparently one of the outlying residences Sondherson had mentioned, they found a carved arched doorway in the bole, firmly barred and bolted. Rory fought down the desire to pound the door down and slip inside to safety. But he bypassed it, and ran out on a larger limb going out over where the Trelwin was still guarding the boy's body.

He looked back to see the treecat coming to across from them, shaking its heavy head, clambering to its feet.

The other hunters had been edging toward the more cluttered section of foliage, but backed off when they saw the Doctor and Rory emerge. The cat was still visible on the edge of the green area. But it was too dense a thicket to penetrate.

The Doctor and Rory ran out onto a large limb, almost directly above where the Trelwin and boy were, they passed the duo, the Trelwin still shivering and not taking its eyes off the cat across the gap.

"Go out to the end, find an upright and hang on!" Sondherson yelled from his own position slightly above them and out toward the edge of the tree. Erik, beside him, was scowling, but nodded angrily at them.

Rory and the Doctor nodded.

Shale had somehow shinnied his way back up to a limb above them, Rory saw him heft his spear and let fly. The shaft flew across the intervening space, becoming darker as the rain dampened it, and struck with a thud in the treecat's haunch. The cat thundered out a roar of pain, and Shale grimaced but grabbed the upright nearest him as the limb shivered under the sound.

"Rory," the Doctor said as the cat fixed its eyes on Shale, and gathered itself on its haunches, "give me your shoes!"

Rory turned and looked at him like he was mad, but undraped the shoes from around his neck and handed them over, the Doctor yanked his boots from around his neck, whipped the two pairs of shoelaces around each other in a tangle and just as the great cat leapt, stretching to its impressive length, he flung.

The improvised bolo soared through the air, Erik's spear converging on the cat from the other side.

The shoes hit the cat’s front paws, tangling around them, just as they hit the branch in front of Shale. Tied together, it couldn't get any purchase. Before it could even begin to scrabble, Erik's spear hit it with a meaty thunk right in the ribs.

The graceful creature gave a lurching twist in midair, eerily silent, the outflung tangled paws hit an upthrust branch, the outflung body finished its leaping arc, swinging down in an inglorious dangle. Hanging lifeless in the misting rain.

The wind picked up, the rain started to come down in earnest.

The Doctor stared down at the magnificent creature, swinging in the air below them. Rory saw the look. He laid a hand on the Time Lord's shoulder. "We had to protect ourselves."

"I know."

"We knew coming up here that they were going to kill it."

"I know, Rory." The Time Lord gave him one of those very old, innocently crushed looks. He sniffed, then shook the mood off. "Come on, let's go check on the boy."

They ran back to the bole and clambered down to the next level. They found Erik already at the branch, coaxing the terrified Trelwin. The gray and brown creature was trembling violently, but it grabbed the boy by one foot and carefully dragged him forward onto the larger branch.

"Let me look, I'm a nurse," Rory said. Between them he and Erik rolled the boy gently onto his back. The child looked to be eight years old, wearing loose shirt and trousers that looked almost like pajamas to Rory, complete with chute placket on the back.

The side of the boy's head was bloody. A careful inspection through his hair revealed a gash apparently left by one of the cat's claws. He had a bump on his skull and a nasty patch of torn scalp, which was where most of the blood was coming from, but he didn't otherwise seem hurt.

"How did it get him away from it?" Rory asked, looking at the Trelwin, the Trelwin crouched at the edge of the branch, watching him with the boy. Still jittery.

"Whew! What's that smell?" Rory asked as the rain-laden wind shifted and blew an acrid stink in his face. "It smells like burning tar!" His eyes watered.

"That's the Trelwin," Sondherson said as he wandered up. He tore his eyes down from the dangling treecat. "They always smell like that when they get terrified."

"Defense mechanism," the Doctor muttered. He squatted down and made soft, comforting chuffing noises, holding out a gentle hand to the terrified creature.

"Like a skunk?" Rory asked.

"Hmm..." the Doctor mumbled wordlessly. "It’s okay," he assured the Trelwin. He waved a slow hand at Rory and the boy. "See, you did good. He's going to be okay."

The Trelwin wasn't much smaller than a human, but with much longer arms and legs, it would have made a handy mouthful for the treecat. Rory shivered at thinking himself within an arm’s length of that hungry maw.

"You did good," he assured the grey and brown spotted Trelwin. "He's going to be fine." Rory nodded reassuringly.

The Trelwin looked expressionlessly back and forth between him and the Doctor. It stopped shivering. Then it stepped backward off of the branch. Rory yelped. He leaned forward urgently over the boy's form and saw the Trelwin catch a smaller branch ten feet down, the branch bent under its weight and it used the spring to fling itself forward to another branch, and quickly disappeared into the maze of the tree.

"Not much for goodbyes are they?" Rory asked.

"No," Erik answered in his gravelly voice. He straightened the child's clothes. He looked up. "Nice throw with the spear," he said.

"Thanks," Rory shrugged.

"But _what_ was the idea with the _whistle_?" he growled at the Doctor.

The Doctor shrugged and straightened his chute harness. "Just trying to cause a distraction."

"You caused a distraction, all right. You could have gotten eaten!" He scrubbed a large weary hand over his broad leathery face, apparently scrubbing out the irritation. He calmed down and said wryly. "Do you have any idea of the paperwork involved when a biologist gets eaten?"

"Well, he didn't," Sondherson said from his perch on the branch above them. He was examining the Treecat's paws, and the tangle of boots and shoelaces that held it suspended over the hook of a stout, snapped off branch.

He looked below the cat, the rain plastering his red hair to his head, the wind starting to pick up. He braced himself on a shoulderhigh branch. "The cat's dead, and it didn't even fall on anything important."

He reached forward and jammed his knife into the knot of shoes and shoelaces. He jerked it forward and severed the ties. The cat slid down out of the tree with a weighty silence, falling, twisting, in a sort of ethereal ballet. It disappeared in the mists before it hit bottom.

Deran held up the tangle of boots and shoes. He looked down at the Doctor and Rory, barefoot in the rain. "I think we can find you some better boots."


	6. Chapter 6

The whole hunting party trooped back down the main staircase, two of the hunters carrying the boy in a foldaway sling made from a length of strong silky cloth Erik had pulled from one of his many pockets.

The wind kicked up, leaves and rain blew through the gaps in the stairs making even barefoot footing treacherous.

Deran sent Shale ahead to sound the all clear, and by the time the hunters made it back to the main plaza the population was returning, streaming back up the tree to their homes. Their congratulations were heartfelt, but the increasing blustery rain dampened any inclination to celebrate.

A crack of thunder illuminated the trees in stark tones of white and black and suddenly everyone was all business. Erik and his other two hunters took the boy off to the local medical shelter. Sondherson found Steve and started issuing orders about lightning rods.

"Shouldn't we get back to the Tardis, Doctor? Haven't you seen enough?" Rory said, huddling in his visitors jacket. Amy had rejoined them with the mass return and had hugged the stuffing out of them and berated them already. She was standing by Rory, looking like a drowned rat. Shivering in her shorts and tights.

Everyone was hurrying to get indoors. It only made sense, with the wind kicking up, being up a tree was not the safest place, even with lightning rods.

"We can only try, Rory." They took off for the other side of the plaza, making for the stairs down to the smaller plaza that was the first place they'd seen on entering the tree.

But the planks were slick, the wind was blowing, the rain got progressively heavier and heavier until they could barely see, they were holding onto each other and slipping and sliding on the slick deck before they even reached the stairs.

"What the hell are you doing?!" Sondherson yelled at them over the rumble of thunder and falling rain.

"We have to get back to our transport pod!" Rory yelled back.

"In this weather? You're mad! You'll get blown off the tree and not even chutes will save you." He waved his arm imperiously from a wide, elaborately carved door in the bole of the tree. "Get in here!"

—————

Amy, Rory, and the Doctor stumble/skated their way across the slick deck, bracing against the gusts of storm wind and rain. Hair tickling with streams of soaking rainwater, they were virtually drowned by the time they managed to flounder their way across the deck and fall into the wide doorway Sondherson held open for them.

Sondherson and Emma put their backs to the oversized doors and muscled them closed, lowering a thick bar over the door with a heartening thunk.

Amy squeezed water out of her hair, the Doctor shook his head like a dog, and Rory stared up in amazement.

They were in a cavern. A sort of cave, hewn out by Dr. Seuss by the look of it. Higgledy-piggledy walls carved up to form a hugely high ceiling forty feet overhead, with bed nooks carved out of the walls at every level, reaching all the way up to the ceiling.

Mellow artificial lights of some type spread a warm golden glow over the whole great hall, if that's what it was.

A leaf fluttered down on a gust of storm wind and landed on Rory's shoulder, making him jump. He whirled and looked up at the huge interior wall. Large arched doors were carved into the curved wall of the tree, with wide shuttered transom windows at the top letting in the occasional rattle and gust of storm wind.

He turned back around. "I'm dreaming."

The Doctor was beaming like a Who at Christmastime. He turned in a beaming whirl, arms outstretched. "it's magnificent! I call dibs on the top bunk!" He yelled merrily, staring up at the curtained alcoves only feet below the forty foot tall ceiling.

"Beds are assigned," Sondherson said, somewhat repressively, but indulgently. Obviously pleased by the Doctor's approval.

Amy was just staring like she'd just stepped into one of VanGogh's paintings.

"What is this?" she asked.

Sondherson pointed to a long bar on the right side of the hall. "Visitors quarters and Single's domicile. And meeting hall whenever we need one." He nodded in approval as Emma waddled up and dropped a heavy blanket over each of the visitors, large, scratchy absorbent blankets that sucked the water right off them.

"Oooh!" Amy shivered. "Thank you!" she said gratefully.

"No problem, ducks. Now the three of you get out of those wet clothes before you catch your death." She pointed toward the back wall beyond the bar, where a rack of metal bars hung over what looked like a radiator. "You can hang your wet clothes over there, they'll dry out in no time, in the meantime you can wear the blankets. I've brought spares." She set down an encouragingly thick stack of blankets on one of the wooden tables that sat in front of the bar.

"Soups been simmering all day, bread's fresh this morning, and there's fruit and nuts for afters. With this storm blowing, you'll probably sleep like a baby, I know I always do." She yawned hugely. "Sorry 'bout that. Cindy!" she yelled.

The curtains on one of the second tier alcoves fluttered and a curly blond head popped out. "Yes, gran?"

"Come take care of our visitors here. They're new, you show them the ropes, huh?"

"Sure!" A bright, cheery little girl of seven popped out of the alcove like a pea out of a pod. She swung down to floor level on a peg rammed into the wall and trotted over. She was dressed in green tights, and a blue unitard, and looked altogether like a daisy.

She bounced on her toes as she beamed up at the visitors. The Doctor grinned down at her. Amy hid a smile under drying her hair, he always was a sucker for a cute little girl.

Emma smothered another huge yawn. "All this excitement has worn me out. I'm off to bed. Cindy, take good care of them." She gave her granddaughter a huge hug, the girl smiled blissfully as she wrapped her little arms as far around her grandma as they'd go. "Deran, I'll see you in the morning." Emma nodded and trotted off to an archway at the back of the hall. Amy's eyes widened as she saw the woman walk upward in a curve and disappear into the tree. She realized there must be interior tunnels in the place.

"Hunh, just like ants," Rory said beside her. She nodded.

The wind howled outside and Sondherson rubbed the back of his hand across his forehead wearily. "I'm off to bed too. I've got a report to write, and there'll be storm damage to clean up in the morning." He sighed and looked at the visitors. "Biologists get free food and bed so take whatever you need. Cindy'll show you which berths to use, and she can answer any questions you have before morning. I'll try to find you some decent boots to wear by then. Jake," he turned to the thirty-something man behind the bar, apparently a combination cook/barkeeper, "You got a sandwich I can take with me?"

"Got your usual right here, Chief," he held up a loaf shaped package wrapped in a soft cloth.

"Thanks." Sondherson took it, and saluted the three visitors with it. "Get out of those wet clothes and get some hot food in you. I'll see you in the morning." With that he tromped off toward the back of the hall and took another shadowy archway, this one apparently leading down.

"Well," Rory said, clapping his hands, blanket heavy around him. "What's for supper?"

Cindy was crouched on the floor in front of him, she looked up. "You've got hairy toes."

Rory curled his cold toes under. "I do not!" he said defensively.

"Hey, lay off the hairy toes. I like the hairy toes," Amy said with a grin. She ruffled the girl's hair. "I'd like to get out of these wet clothes. Which bed is ours munchkin?"

Cindy grinned up at her. "Over here," the girl trailed off, chattering. Amy followed.

Rory stared down at his toes, then followed the girls with his eyes. Apparently biologists were assigned alcoves on the third level. He watched as Amy climbed up the carved in handholds, blanket trailing, after the little girl and disappeared behind the fluttering curtain. After a bit of bumping and ruffling, he saw her wet clothes plop out onto the raised dais at the side of the bed.

Cindy trotted back over and picked up two of the blankets off the table, they were almost bigger than she was, she toddled over and handed them to him, bumping into him because she couldn't see him over the top. "Amy said you're her husband, so you can bring the extra blankets," Cindy explained.

Rory looked down at the fluffy blankets in his arms. "Yeah," he had a sudden vision of Amy, sans blanket, walking across the room to hang her wet clothes over the radiator to dry. He wouldn't put it past her. He turned to say something to the Doctor, but stopped and hurried over to the bed alcove.

"So, Cindy," the Doctor said, standing there leaning on the bar, hair limp, tweed and trousers dripping onto the wood floor past his bare feet. "What would you suggest for supper?"

Cindy giggled and picked up the last blanket. She started patting it over him like a big drying pad. "You gotta get dry first!" she protested, laughing when he just stood there and let her mash the blanket on him. "You're gonna make the tree sprout with all that water!" Cindy said. The Doctor could definitely hear a scolding mother in her tone.

He jumped comically, jumping right out of the puddle he'd created on the floor. "Oh no!" He leaned down ostentatiously and studied the puddle as if looking for tree sprouts. "Do they grow fast? Quick smother them!" He plucked the blanket out of her hands and smashed it down on the puddle, sopping up the water with mock urgency.

Cindy rocked back and forth laughing. "You're silly!"

"No, I'm soppy!" he declared in all his drippy glory. "Which bed's mine?"

She grabbed his hand and dragged him over to the wall. She pointed up to a berth on the fourth tier, one row over from Amy and Rory's. "The one with the checkered curtains?" he asked.

She nodded.

"Excellent!" He swarmed up the carved in hand and footholds. "Don't eat all my biscuits!" he yelled over his shoulder.

They reconvened at the tables several minutes later, bundled in the blankets. They'd spread their clothes over the radiator rods, to gently steam away in the cool evening air. The storm continued to rattle the shutters every now and then and waft rain-smelling air in in odd but strangely comforting drafts.

Jake, it turned out, was Cindy's father and Emma's son-in-law. As he dished up bowls of soup and passed out bowls of nut butter and hunks of bread he explained that the place was a sort of community hall and public dormitory. A half dozen "regulars" were keeping to themselves at a table in the back corner of the room, apparently absorbed in some game they were playing, or perhaps just avoiding the "biologists."

Amy shrugged and dug into her soup. No skin off her nose, although she knew the Doctor would be over there introducing himself and getting into their space if he hadn't had Jake and Cindy to concentrate on.

Amy was bundled quite happily, if a bit haphazardly in her blanket, draped over her shoulders and arms to keep the drafts out. Rory had his folded and wrapped around his chest and under his arms like a sarong, snugly tucked in at the front. The Doctor had his draped around him in classical Roman fashion, as heedlessly comfortable in that as he was in bowties and tweed.

Reminded by his earlier remarks about spears and lions, Amy asked, "Why don't you have yours done like that?"

Rory looked up, filled spoon halfway to his lips. He shrugged. "This way's more practical."

Amy looked down fondly at her practical husband, then across at her impractical imaginary friend. She shook her head.

She reached for a a knobbly orange-green fruit from the bowl Jake put on the table. She took a bite. Her eyes snapped open and juice dribbled down her chin. "Oh Wow! You've gotta try this!" She held out her fruit to Rory, he pulled back and looked at it dubiously.

"What is it?" It looked like a plasticy avocado on the outside, and was the fleshy orange color of a cantaloupe inside.

"I don't know," Amy yelled across the table, "Doctor, what is this?"

The Doctor pulled his attention from Cindy, and studied the fruit. He shrugged. "Dunno. Cindy, what do you call that fruit?"

The little moppet beside him looked and said, "That's a ripper fruit."

Rory stared at her in consternation, picturing a Victorian murderer eating one. "Ripper fruit?"

"Yeah," the girl piped up and climbed half on the table, she snagged a small fruit from the bowl and sat on the table, she dug her fingers into it and ripped it in half with a wet crunching noise. She held up half, "See, ripper fruit!" She took a bite out of the half-sphere, using her teeth to dig a chunk out of the solid meat of the fruit, leaving the rind behind to form a bowl. She crunched happily and offered the other half to the Doctor.

Amy looked down where she'd bitten into the rind. It had been sort of tough. She shrugged and ripped it in half. She gave one half to Rory. "You gotta try it. it's crunchy like an apple, but it tastes like an orange!"

The Doctor watched Cindy eat her fruit, then watched as she tilted her half up to her lips like a bowl. "The juice is the best part!" she said enthusiastically. She was jittering lightly on the table, delighted to be able to teach a grown-up something. She nodded enthusiastically at him, eyeing his fruit.

He took a bite, digging it out of the flesh with his teeth the way she'd shown him. The flesh was crunchy and sweet, and as he chewed he looked down at the small depression he'd made in the fruit and watched it fill with juice leached from the rest of the flesh. He swallowed and sipped. It did taste a lot like orange juice, only clearer somehow.

Rory was staring down at his fruit, an astonished look on his face. "That's good!"

—————

Jake started discreetly lowering the lights in the hall. The locals quit their game, brought their tankards to the bar and made mumbled good nights. They climbed up to their beds in the shadowy heights of the great, oddly shaped room.

Rory yawned and half dozed on his bench, the stormy night air was acting as a soporific on all of them. Cindy stumbled off to her bed, shooed by her father.

"Come along, time for bed, Ponds. it's been a busy day." He shooed his own ducklings ahead of him. Watching to make sure they climbed safely up to their own bed before swarming up the wall to his own bed nook.

He lay down on the soft downy mattress and sank in with a sigh. He pulled the smooth, ageworn coverlet over himself and settled back to listen to the soft sound of the storm as it blew itself out beyond the shutters. If he closed his eyes he could believe he felt the gentle swaying of the huge ancient tree.

His breathing slowed. His heartbeats softened.

The smell of fresh rain, wet wood, and clean sheets, filled his head and buoyed him off to sleep.

—————

The Doctor woke in the ancient dark. The only sound around him the gentle sound of dripping leaves, and the soft snoring of his fellow sleepers.

He brushed aside the checkered curtain that fronted his alcove. The hall below was quiet, with that still contentment that comes in the deepest night. Faint moonlight seeped in through the shuttered transom windows over the arched door, giving the darkness a pearly sheen.

Quietly, so as not to wake the others, he climbed out of his niche and trotted barefoot across the floor to check their clothes. As promised, they were nicely dry and warm.

He dressed and unbarred the huge arched doors. He slipped outside.

Outside, a huge gibbous moon floated wavery pale over the giant trees. Silvery light spilled down to cast twinkling stars in all the jeweled raindrops still hovering on leaves and branches. The wet decks gleamed with moonlight, and every guy wire and rope glimmered and glinted like a strand of lights.

The air was heavy and humid, clinging to him with a lover's caress. He closed his eyes and raised his face to it, smiling. He went for a stroll, keeping to the boardwalks. A silent ghost slipping past the shuttered shops and quiet residences. Soft clouds wafted past the huge moon, sending strange drifts of dark and light across the scene.

He stood at the edge of a wide boardwalk, looking out over the endless jungle. A lumpy green so dark it was nearly black, highlighted in silver/white in the moonlight. A quality of night that was almost day, if he had the eyes for it.

He wandered back into the deeper shelter of the trees, back to the atrium with its protecting branches and promise of bustling humanity. Yet he loved these quiet hours. A time when all the frantic race of day was soothed, when life was just life, when there was no pressing need to be anywhere, do anything. When just being was enough.

He stopped back on the wide boardwalk and tipped his head back, arms wide, and just let the moonlight bathe him. Silvery silence, the comforting darkness wrapping around, here in the womblike embrace of the tree. He opened his eyes slowly, unfocused. Then wider. Silvery pinpricks of starlight were floating all around him. A softly moving swarm of luminescent insects, gold and green and watery blue. So many that it seemed like a living cloud. All made up of tiny butterfly like creatures, their wings transparent except in the glow of their luminescent bodies. Thousands of them, drifting on the wind, swirling around him, landing on him, bedecking him like a jeweled Christmas tree.

The Doctor grinned, he held up one of the tiny creatures, no bigger than his pinkie fingernail. In fact, sitting on his pinkie fingernail. Wings lightly floating in the air until a puff of breeze lifted them off to swirl away into the night, a fairy dance trailing away to enchant some other mortal.

—————

"Come on, sleepyheads! Time to get up!" The Doctor whipped away the curtain over Amy and Rory's bed nook. Rory scowled and held up a hand to ward off the bright morning sunlight streaming in.

They were cuddled in, heaped under mounds of blankets, Amy's head resting on Rory's shoulder, one hand curled over his heart.

"Come on, up and at 'em!" The Doctor said with annoying cheer. He tossed their clothes into the nook. "I incorporated our chutes into our clothes, so they should be more comfortable now."

"You sew?" Rory asked, still befuddled by the Doctor's morning cheer. Amy grunted at her pillow talking and smacked him on the chest. She pulled the covers up over her head.

The Doctor ran his thumbs under his braces, with his chute straps on underneath it looked like he was wearing two sets of braces. "I'm a man of many talents. Come on, seriously, get up. Things to do. Besides, breakfast." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder and turned to indicate the sound of people getting up and the clatter of pots and dishes. The light fell across his face.

Rory jerked upright. "Doctor! What happened to your face?!"


	7. Chapter 7

The Doctor's face was beet red, grossly swollen, and dotted with red marks.

"What?" the Doctor asked innocently, batting long eyelashes against his rounded cheeks.

"Don't move." Rory pointed at him, sternly. "Stay right where you are." He whipped the curtain back into place, leaving the Doctor standing on the three foot wide ledge that fronted the bed alcove. He poked Amy awake. "Amy get up, get dressed."

"What? Why?" she said muzzily. "Tell him to go away and come back in the morning." She buried herself under the bedclothes again.

"Seriously, Amy, get up." Rory said, scrambling into his clothes in the limited space. There wasn't even room to stand up, and the chute didn't help. "Something's wrong with the Doctor."

"What?" Amy whipped the blankets down off her face, staring at him, suddenly awake. He tossed her clothes to her. "Get dressed before he wanders off."

"I can hear you, you know," the Doctor said from outside the curtain.

—————

Rory studied his vest quickly. Somehow the Doctor had taken the chute out of the visitor's jacket and sewn it right into his vest. It now had a flap on the back, where the chute would deploy. With the puffiness of his vest, he'd end up with a headrest if he had to use it.

He pondered the straps for a moment, wondering how he should get dressed, then pulled on his shirt and underpants, shrugged on the vest and attached the leg harness lines like he'd been shown, clipping them back to the belt at the front. He slipped on his trousers over them. With the lines under the cloth it was much more comfortable, and less likely to get snagged on a stray branch.

He turned to find Amy had wiggled into her clothes too. She snapped her last harness clip onto the ring at her belt and jerked her shirt down.

"What's wrong with the Doctor?" she asked urgently.

"Didn't you see his face?" Rory asked.

Amy shook her head, Rory whipped the curtain aside to show the Doctor, looking out over the hall in the morning light. His face was swollen, and beet red.

—————

"Get down there, right now," Rory said, pointing at the tables in the common area below.

The Doctor raised his eyebrows at Rory's authoritative tone. "Yes sir," he said, giving him a mocking salute.

Rory reached out and grabbed his saluting hand. He turned it over, it was red, with a rash of raised red dots all over it. The normally bony knuckles swollen.

"Can you even climb like this?" Rory asked worriedly. He shook his head. "Obviously, if you got up here, you can climb. Just be careful going down." He dropped the Doctor's hand and the Doctor gave him an indulgent look but started climbing down.

"What happened to him?" Amy asked. She had been uncharacteristically silent, sitting on the side of the bed, staring at the Doctor, appalled.

Rory shrugged. "There's no telling. We'll know better after I've examined him. Maybe that ripper fruit didn't agree with him." He pushed off of the soft mattress and swung over onto the carved-in handgrips. "Come on."

On the way down he noticed that Amy's red shirt also had a new back panel sewn into it. Part of the back of the shirt now serving as a flap.

When they hit the floor they found the Doctor sitting patiently at one of the tables, hands clasped in his lap in mock obedience. Rory immediately scowled at him. "It's not funny, Doctor. What have you been doing?"

Rory knelt down and examined the Doctor's face. It was swollen, puffy, as red as if he was sunburned, and covered with little red dots. The Doctor started scratching his cheek.

Rory grabbed his hand and forced it down in his lap. "Don't scratch!" Rory examined the Doctor's eyes, they weren't yellow or rheumy, still clear, the bumps on his face weren't oozing anything, they didn't look like hives or chicken pox. His skin was fiery red, but not hot to the touch, not even by the Doctor's standards of cool skin.

"Does it hurt?" Amy asked worriedly. Morning sunlight flooded in through the now open transom windows, making the Doctor's condition all too clear.

Rory turned to look at her, more worried by the subdued tone of her voice than by the rash on the Doctor.

The Doctor shook his head. "Just itches." He started to scratch again. Rory shoved his hand back to his lap. The Doctor scowled at him.

"How could you not notice you were in this state?" Rory demanded, studying the bumps on the Doctor's hands.

The Doctor shrugged, "I was busy."

"Too busy to take care of your own health. Typical." Rory humphed. "Could it be an allergic reaction?" he asked. "Something in the ripper fruit? Or something we've been exposed to while we've been here?" He looked up at Amy, she seemed perfectly healthy. "We're not reacting to anything, but we're not Time Lords."

The Doctor shook his head. "Time Lords are resistant to most things. We have to be. I don't see how..." He started scratching the back of his hand and Amy slapped his hand, a scowl on her face. He scowled back, like an offended child.

Cindy, fresh and energetic this morning, bounced up to them. "Good morning!" she piped. She got her first good look at the Doctor and her eyes lit up. She started laughing. "You look like you were caught by a night swarm!" she pointed at him with a tiny finger, bouncing in delight.

"Night swarm?" Rory asked. Jake walked up to them just then, carrying mugs of some hot drink, he set them down on the table then turned and got a look at the Doctor. He shook his head.

"Where you outside anytime last night?" he asked.

"I took a walk, that's all," the Doctor said defensively, seeing the accusatory look on Rory and Amy's faces.

"And let me guess, you started chasing the pretty glowbugs," Jake said, with an aggrieved sigh.

"I didn't chase anything," the Doctor protested.

"What are you talking about?" Rory asked Jake. He nodded a greeting beyond him when he saw Sondherson arrive, walking up behind the bartender. The administrator took one look at the Doctor and dropped his head, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"I didn't chase anything!" the Doctor protested at all their disapproving looks. He couldn't pull off quite the usual innocent look with his face all puffy and spotted. "Yes," he admitted, "There was a swarm of very pretty glowing insects, but I didn't chase them."

"Instead," Sondherson said, sounding very weary, "they landed all over you didn't they?"

"Yes, but they were harmless, they didn't bite me."

"Glowbugs secrete a natural anesthetic, you never feel the bite until afterward. They travel in swarms, usually on humid nights, like after a storm." He sighed. "Everyone here knows to avoid them." He set a handful of soft boots that he'd been carrying on the table.

Reminded, Rory looked down, to see that even the Doctor's long feet were covered in bite marks.

"Is it dangerous?" Rory asked.

"Not usually, no." Sondherson said. "Depends on how big the swarm is, and if the person is allergic. Then it can be deadly." He looked at the Doctor with a serious expression. "I should point out, that most people don't swell up and turn red."

"That's it!" Rory said. He grabbed a pair of soft boots and shoved them at the Doctor. He started pulling on a pair himself. "We're going back to the Tardis. Right now."

"Rory, I'm fine, it's just a few mosquito bites," the Doctor said.

" _Alien_ mosquito bites," Rory said, glaring at him. "And even regular mosquito bites can carry malaria and all sorts of other nasties. I'm not going to feel better until we get you checked out in the Tardis infirmary."

"But..."

"Don't argue, Doctor," Amy said, sternly, pointing down at the boots in his lap. "If it was one of us you wouldn't rest until you'd checked us over. We're going back to the Tardis."

"I'm sure the locals have some sort of creme or..." he started to turn to Sondherson but saw the flash in Amy's eyes.

"Put the boots on," she said, with a gravely tone in her voice that snapped him to attention.

It wasn't the order, so much as the scared look behind it that had him meekly pulling on the boots over his itchy feet.

Rory looked up at Sondherson. "Is it safe for us to go back to our transport now?" he asked. "The storm damage..." he hinted.

Sondherson waved a hand. "It wasn't as bad as we'd feared. Most of the branchways are fairly dry already, you should be fine. Do you need a guide?"

"No," Rory said. "We can find it from here."

Amy lifted the Doctor out of his chair by one arm. She noted it felt strangely squishy under her hand, not as bony as she was used to. She also noted the back of his tweed jacket had a chute panel sewn into it now, the same as her and Rory's.

He was being strangely quiescent. Amy shot a worried look at Rory. He returned it. "Come on." He led the way out of the community hall, through the big doors standing open to the morning air, and down the stairs from the plaza to the smaller platform they'd first arrived on.

The morning was bright and balmy, people were out and going about their business, clearing away leaves and fallen branches, and generally getting on with their lives. They garnered a few incredulous looks and indulgent smiles when they saw the Doctor's red, puffy, bitten face, but otherwise were left alone. One man did call a congratulations on the treecat kill, the Doctor raised a hand in acknowledgment and smiled. But he lacked his general bounciness. He was acting positively normal. Which wasn't normal for the Doctor.

Rory retraced their route out onto the massive "J" branch, then turned right when he saw the junction with 27 carved into the branch beside the path.

Behind him, he could hear the Doctor puffing and wheezing. He looked back with worry. Amy gave him a terrified look. The Doctor was plodding along beside her, his face was noticeably more swollen.

"What's happening?" Amy said, a quaver in her voice.

"Vascular contraction," the Doctor croaked out. He looked up at Rory. "We need the Tardis."

Rory nodded resolutely, he started jogging faster. Amy and the Doctor stumbled after him.

They reached the junction where the Tardis was parked. It wasn't there.

Rory stopped and spun around in consternation. He checked the view. Yes, this was the same spot.

"Where's the Tardis?" Amy demanded, she was propping the Doctor up with one arm around his waist, his other arm around her neck. He was breathing heavily. His breath whistled.

"It was right here!" Rory said helplessly, flinging out his arms.

"Blown over during the storm," the Doctor said, breathily. He pointed one heavy arm at recent scratch marks on one of the two branches the Tardis had been backed up against. He looked down over the side of the branch at the drop thousands of feet below.

"You mean it's destroyed?" Amy said, aghast.

"No, no, the old girl's indestructible." He saw the looks they were giving him. "From the outside anyway." He breathed in a deep gasp, his breath coming in shorter pants.

"So what do we do?" Rory asked, running his hands through his hair. The Doctor was practically hanging from Amy's grip.

"Get me... back to the great hall," the Doctor said, stopping to gasp in much needed air. He shuffled around in a turn, his skin so tight and swollen now that he couldn't move with his usual alacrity. Rory ran forward and grabbed his other arm, slinging it over his neck.

"Hurry, Ponds," the Doctor gasped out, trying to make his legs move. "My Ponds."

The sound of that made Amy and Rory flash panicked looks at each other over his bent head.

They picked him up and ran.


	8. Chapter 8

Amy and Rory burst back into the great hall with the Doctor drooping between them.

"We need help here!" Rory yelled.

A crowd of concerned citizens that had followed them jammed the doorway. Sondherson and Jake were still at the bar, Emma had joined them.

"Doctor!" Sondherson was the first to see them, he jerked upright from his morning tankard, startled to see the man looking so much worse in so short a time.

Emma bustled over, "We've got to get him to the infirmary!" she declared, reaching forward to take his weight from Amy.

The Doctor fought off their hands, and stumbled to the bar, forcing himself upright. His breath was coming so fast and loud that it whistled in the shocked silence.

"I need ginger beer," he gasped out. Jake looked at him in stunned shock.

"This is no time for a drink, Doctor," Sondherson said, grabbing his arm. "You need medical help."

"I need ginger beer," the Doctor said, trying to glare sternly through his swollen cheeks, shaking off Sondherson's hand and turning back to Jake.

"I don't know what that is," Jake said helplessly, obviously eager to help but not knowing how.

The Doctor's breathing was becoming increasingly labored, shorter... "Then something fermented or carbonated," he forced out between breaths. "And nuts, salty nuts, any kind..." he waved a weak hand, showing it didn't matter, then slapped it back to the bar, leaning weakly, the bar was rough under his swollen hand.

Emma walked over and grabbed him from behind, she picked him up. "I'm sorry, Doctor, but this is no time for a last binge. We have to get you to the doctor."

The Doctor flailed and slapped at her ineffectually, facing away from her. "Ponds!" The word should have been a yell, but it had no breath behind it, coming out as a weak gasp.

It galvanized Amy and Rory. They jumped forward. Amy grabbed Emma by the ear, digging her nails in and twisting viciously, drawing blood. "Drop him!"

Emma shrieked and instinctively dropped the Doctor. Rory caught him. Amy danced back from Emma's backhanded swipe. The Doctor struggled up and lurched for the bar. "Ginger beer!" he yelled, using up all his air, he collapsed against the bar, barely staying on his feet.

"Stop trying to help him!" Amy yelled desperately. "Just give him what he needs!"

"Please," Rory said softly, green eyes terrified but pleading. Jake nodded and reached under the bar, he pulled out a bowl full of nuts and twirled it across the bar, he turned and pulled a quick pint from a cask on a rack behind the bar. He plopped it down on the counter in front of the Doctor.

The Doctor had already shoved a handful of nuts in his mouth, he picked up the pint and sloshed the frothy liquid into his mouth, splashing it over his chin. Rory didn't know how he was swallowing, but apparently he forced it down somehow.

He couldn't hear him breathing. Rory's heart pounded painfully in his chest. He looked over and saw Amy crying.

"Rory," the Doctor croaked out painfully. "Hit me."

"What?" Rory said, appalled. "You're sick, I can't do that!"

"Rory..." the Doctor said, eyes pleading with him, sagging against the bar, visibly fading. His chest wasn't moving. Rory dithered, hands moving helplessly.

"Oh, for God's sake!" Amy shouted. She grabbed the Doctor's shoulder, pulled him around, and punched him solidly across the jaw. Everyone gasped.

The Doctor spun, hitting the bar.

He stiffened, turned and threw his head back with a roar. A black cloud of greasy smoke burst out of his mouth, his whole body went rigid, as if he was forcing the roiling black air out.

It seemed to go on forever. The locals gasped and stepped back with superstitious fear. After what felt like forever but couldn't have been more than a few seconds, the Doctor relaxed and slumped forward, taking a step to catch his balance. He started breathing again, deep heavy breaths that showed his airway was clear again.

Rory slumped with relief. The Doctor looked up and Rory saw the redness and swelling on his face receding. The "mosquito bites" disappeared as he watched.

The Doctor stood up straighter and adjusted his lapels. He ran a hand through his hair, then wiped a hand over his mouth, brushing off nut crumbs. "Sorry about that," he said in his normal voice. "Bit of a close call there." Within minutes he looked like his normal, bony, pale self.

Amy gave a sort of muffled scream and engulfed him in a fierce hug that almost knocked him over.

"Hey, hey, it's all right," he said, patting her back. He pushed her away slightly to look in her face and saw the teartracks still glistening on her cheeks. He hugged her back to him tightly. She shoved her face in his neck. He held her tightly, rubbing her back and gave Rory a helpless look over her shoulder.

"What the hell was that?" Sondherson said, speaking for everyone in the hall.

Amy gave the Doctor's shoulder a slap at the question, as if she wanted to know too. Then she pushed back and wiped her face off, she turned and looked at all the shocked faces around them.

"The Doctor's not human," she explained. She looked at Emma with her bloody ear. "I'm sorry. But your medicine would only have killed him," she apologized.

She turned to Sondherson. "Our transport pod, and all his medical equipment, got knocked out of the tree by the storm. So he had to find a different way." Sondherson nodded, understanding about the Tardis, if not the cure.

"What _did_ you do?" Rory asked, asking what was on everybody's mind.

The Doctor, a bit surprised to be the focus of so many eyes, just waved a hand. "Detox. A little trick my race picked up a long time ago. Mostly college kids." He saw the way people were looking sideways at each other. "Oh don't worry, I've spent most of my life among humans, it's only a few chemical differences really. No need to be alarmed."

"Yeah, well don't do that again!" Rory said, slapping him on the back. Most of the crowd seemed to be reassured by Rory's casual attitude and handling of the "alien."

The Doctor shrugged and stuffed his hands in his pockets. "Next time I won't let my self get bit by a glowbug," he said, kicking at an imaginary pebble on the wooden floor.

There were laughs from the crowd at that childish mistake and it started to disperse. Sondherson waited until they were gone before asking, "What about you two, are you human?"

"Us?" Rory waggled a finger between him an Amy. "Yeah, we're as human as you get. We just travel with him."

Sondherson nodded. "Good. At least our medical aid will work on you if, god forbid, we need it. Now, Amy," he reached behind him and picked up the last pair of boots on the table, he handed them to her. "I think these will work better than the one's you're wearing. Give you better purchase for treewalking." He nodded down at her shoes.

She accepted them and sat down to put them on. "Thanks."

The Doctor noticed Emma wiping at her bloody ear. "Emma! Here, let me look." He took her chin in his hand and turned her head, looking at the bleeding slash in her ear. "How did that happen?"

"Me, I'm afraid," Amy said from her perch on the bench. "I'm sorry, Emma, but I couldn't let you..."

Emma waved it off. "I understand. Still hurts, mind. But I understand why you did it. Wouldn't want to tangle with you in a fight, that's for sure."

Amy gave her a grimacing smile.

"Hold still," the Doctor said. He took out his sonic screwdriver and waved it over her ear, buzzing. The skin plumped up, then seamed back together. Healing cleanly, leaving only a thin pink line. He took a clean towel off the bar and wiped off the rest of the blood. "There you go, good as new."

Emma rubbed her ear then looked down at the sonic screwdriver. "Why didn't you use that on yourself?" she asked.

He shrugged and slipped it back in his pocket. "Doesn't work on poison."

Cindy came up, looking very frightened, and examined her grandma's ear. Emma crouched down so she could see it, then gave the girl a reassuring hug.

The Doctor smiled, ran a hand over the child's curls then turned and clapped his hands. "Right," he said, catching Sondherson's attention. "About the Tardis."

"Your friend said it fell out of the tree?" Sondherson said, nodding at Rory. He and Amy were sitting at the table still a bit shakey, drinking a hot morning beverage and eating the breakfast rolls Jake had provided.

"Yes, blown out by last night's storm no doubt," the Doctor said.

"No doubt." Sondherson replied. "If it fell that far, it's likely to be destroyed."

"Nah," the Doctor said. "She's specially reinforced. She'll have survived the fall, we just have to go get her."

"I can't let you go traipsing into the forest alone, Doctor, it's too dangerous." Before the Doctor could start to protest Sondherson held up a hand. "But if you're all right now, we have a safari leaving tomorrow. They can detour to the area where your pod should have landed. Can you transfer it back up here when you find it?"

"Sure, that should be no problem." He distinctly ignored Rory's dubious look.

"Fine. That'll save you all the climb back up. I don't think Erik is going to want you going on his hunt," Sondherson said.

"Ah, quite," the Doctor said.


	9. Chapter 9

Sondherson left to make arrangements for the morning, Emma took Cindy and disappeared in the tunnels in the back of the hall and the Doctor went and joined Amy and Rory for breakfast.  
  
Axel strolled in through the big double doors, sunlight flooding in around him, as the last of the crowd disbursed. He sauntered over to the bar and ordered himself a morning pint.  
  
He took his mug and turned around, tipping his straw hat up. He sipped his drink. “I heard about your exhibition,” he said, drawing all three of their gazes.  
  
He leaned casually on the bar. “Is that how your people deal with getting sick? By getting drunk and picking a fight?”  
  
“What?” the Doctor said, affronted. “No!”  
  
Axel grinned. “Don’t worry, done the same thing myself many a time. Not, I’ll admit, for bug bites. So,” he set his mug back on the bar. “Since I hear you won’t be be recovering your transfer pod until tomorrow, that leaves you at loose ends today. How about cashing in that rain check?” Axel asked.  
  
“Yes!” The Doctor jumped up, excited, brushing bread roll crumbs off his jacket, ready to go immediately.  
  
“Doctor” Rory said repressively, “You were just very sick...”  
  
The Doctor waved that off. “It was nothing.”  
  
“Nothing!” Rory protested, “You almost died! How long were you sick before you woke us up anyway?”  
  
The Doctor shrugged.  
  
“Doctor,” Rory said warningly.  
  
“I don’t know. Couple of hours. I went for my walk before I fixed our chutes.”  
  
“So you were sick for hours, but never noticed,” Rory said repressively.  
  
“No! I don’t know. Some things don’t always show up immediately. Things take time to develop, or my immune system was fighting it off until then. I didn’t know anything was wrong until you pointed it out.”  
  
“So it was psychosomatic?”  
  
“Could be. It’s like a paper cut, you don’t notice you have one, then when you do, it’s agony!” He shook his head at Rory, and turned pleading puppy dog eyes on him. “I’m okay now.”  
  
“I don’t know...” the nurse hedged.  
  
“Rory, he’s fine.” Amy cut him off, setting aside her breakfast roll, resignedly. “Besides,” she said quietly, “do you really want to be trapped in here with him all day?” She nodded around the hall which suddenly looked much smaller.  
  
“Good point.”  
  
“Excellent!” the Doctor said, clapping his hands. He pivoted to Axel and grinned. “Lead on!”  
  
—————  
  
Axel led them out, around the edge of the plaza, and across a wooden branch bridge to the northernmost of the three trees in the group.  
  
They were crossing another large plaza, this one looking much more like a rural gathering place with benches and tables scattered around and a low, intimate canopy of foliage overhead to keep off the sun, when the Doctor saw a familiar figure go strolling past.  
  
“Who’s that?” the Doctor asked, nodding at a tall, lean, ascetic looking man with white hair and a kindly face.  
  
“That’s Aaron, our local genius,” Axel answered. “He’s responsible for a lot of the innovations that make tree living possible. Why?”  
  
“I saw him yesterday, that Trelwin was following him then too,” the Doctor indicated the dove-white Trelwin ambling at the man’s side. “I thought you said Trelwin weren’t pets.”  
  
“They aren’t. That’s Nelda. I suppose you could say he adopted her. Her parents were killed in a storm when she was just a chubbling. He’s been teaching her sign language. Part of his attempts to discover just how sentient the Trelwin are.”  
  
“Oh?” the Doctor’s eyebrows popped up with interest. “I’d like to talk to him, that sounds interesting,” he said, rubbing his hands together in anticipation.  
  
Axel grunted. “I’m sure he’d be happy to talk your leg off about it,” he said. “ _After_ you see the farms.”  
  
—————  
  
“Wow.” Rory blinked in the bright sunlight.  
  
They were standing on a supervisor's platform, out at the farthest edge of the tree. Jungle spread out all the way to the horizon. Sunlight poured down through the branches, the branches were thinner here, many less than a dozen feet thick, and everywhere they looked were nets and wires and guylines, farmers zizzing back and forth on fragile strands, the whole thing sparkling with dew and shining like a fairytale garden.  
  
Bushes grew on some limbs, low lying plants on others, vines grew in a tangle on uprights and whole fruit trees grew out of giant branches, all the way around, like bristles on a brush.  
  
A farmer zizzed down an angled line right beside the platform, he slowed to a halt, hanging from his chute harness, sitting as comfortably as a man in a swing, completely oblivious of the thousand foot drop below him.  
  
“Ho! Axel!”  
  
“Ho, Jeremy. How’s the cleanup coming?”  
  
“We're getting there. You showing the biologists around?”  
  
“Yeah, tell everyone to keep an eye open, they’re still not used to treewalking,” Axel warned.  
  
“Will do. Morning folks. Enjoy!” With a jaunty wave he pressed something on his handgrip and zizzed off down below them. Amy leaned over the railing and watched him. “That looks like fun!”  
  
Rory looked over the edge and felt his stomach flipflop. “Uh huh.”  
  
“Come on, let me show you around.” Axel led them down a spiral staircase, this one had a metal cable for a handrail, the upright it was built from hung out over nothing. The stairs were only four feet wide.  
  
Everywhere around them the farmers were busy cleaning up storm debris, repairing nets, gathering the ripe and almost ripe fruit that had been shaken loose into the nets, and repairing the nets themselves. Farm workers whizzed around on guy wires, dangled below branches in harnesses, and used a webwork of winches, pulleys, and tackle to move everything from deadfall branches to barrels of produce.  
  
“Why not just toss the dead branches over?” Rory asked.  
  
Axel gave him a dismissive look. “Why waste a valuable source of wood? Anything that’s usable will go to the carpenters or into the seasoning sheds, the rest will go to the charcoal burners.”  
  
“Isn’t fire dangerous in a tree?” Amy asked.  
  
The Doctor answered before Axel could. “Humans have been living in wooden homes for millennia, that never stopped them using fire. You just have to be careful.”  
  
Axel nodded. “Exactly. Plus, we spend a fortune on fire suppression equipment." He led them out onto a narrow maintenance platform, cluttered with agricultural tools. "Come over here, Doctor, I think you’ll be interested in this.”  
  
He took them to show them the orchards. Trees growing out of trees.  
  
The trees grew all around their main branch. Some Trelwin were crawling through the mass of branches, dropping ripe fruit into the net held by humans below.  
  
“I didn’t expect to see Trelwins helping you,” Rory said. “I thought they’d be more likely to steal from the farms.”  
  
“Oh, they do. But they help too. They make great scarecrows, keep the birds off a treat. It’s no problem them taking their fair share. And they don’t generally harm the crops. I’ve actually seen adult Trelwins correcting young ones who damage the plants when they’re playing.”  
  
“So, they have jobs?” Rory asked.  
  
“Oh, no,” Axel waved that away as he led them down another level and out onto a larger branch in the shade of a large upright. “You can’t make a Trelwin do anything. They do as they please.”  
  
“Like cats,” Rory said.  
  
“Or Time Lords,” said Amy.  
  
The Doctor gave her a supercilious look, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”  
  
Rory sniggered.  
  
Axel grinned at their byplay. He waved a hand out at the farming branches, there were Trelwins everywhere, of every color and pattern, light and dark, grey and red, dappled and spotted and pinto splotched. There seemed to be one Trelwin for every two humans.  
  
“They’re good neighbors,” Axel said with satisfaction. “They do their share and they don’t bother anyone. They tend to live farther out in the fringes of the tree anyway, so we see more of them in the farms than in town.”  
  
Something passed over Amy and rubbed across her head like a heavy silk blanket. She screamed.  
  
She crouched and batted at it, blinded by her hair, it felt like a net, but solid, muffling. Rory grabbed her to keep her from falling.  
  
“Careful! Careful, it’s all right!” Axel yelled. “Shoo!”  
  
Amy looked up, her heart beating a hole in her chest. “What was it!” she demanded, eyes wide. Axel grabbed her arm in a hard grip and he and Rory dragged her back to the center of the branch. She sat, hands frantically gripping the bark.  
  
“It’s okay,” Rory said quietly.  
  
She pushed her tangled hair out of her eyes.  
  
“Oh, Amy. Look,” the Doctor said in reverent tones.  
  
She looked at him then up to where he was staring. On the next higher branch, less than 20 feet away, perched a huge stained glass window made of living flesh.  
  
Sunlight streamed through delicate membranes, all the colors of the rainbow. Geometric shapes and swirling colors formed a sculpture of light. “What is it?” Amy said, crawling to her feet, all her fear forgotten. She couldn’t take her eyes off it.  
  
“It’s a Sunsail,” Axel said. “Sorry, I should have warned you.”  
  
“Giganteroptera,” the Doctor murmured in wonder.  
  
“What?” Rory asked.  
  
The Doctor looked at him and grinned. “Really, really _big_ butterfly.”  
  
“Why’s it just sitting there?” Amy asked.  
  
“It’s milking time.”  
  
“What!” Rory asked with a yelp.  
  
“Come on,” Axel grinned. “I’ll show you.”  
  
—————  
  
They worked their way up to the next branch which had apparently been set up as a milking station. It was a bit shadowy here, cooler. The farming proper was taking place farther out on the sunlit branches.  
  
Axel reached up and scratched the Sunsail on its furry chest. The whole torso, some 10 feet of it, was covered with wooly gray fur.  
  
There was a little stool and a line of pails set up in front of it.  
  
The creature shivered and fluttered its wings, each wing a good ten to twelve feet in diameter.  
  
“Why do you need to milk a butterfly?” Rory asked in disbelief. He stared up at the giant insect, it stared back down at him with huge, multifaceted, doelike eyes.  
  
“Sunsails secrete a polymerlike substance that they use to spin their cocoons and night threads. We use it to weatherproof decks and seal interior walls,” Axel explained.  
  
“What’s a 'night thread'?” Rory asked.  
  
Axel pulled up a stool. He sat down. “Sunsails hang upside down when they sleep. They use these spinners here to weave a strong silk rope to hang by.” He tapped what looked like a stinger at the base of the Sunsail’s abdomen. “It comes in handy, we harvest the night threads and use them for ropes and chute lines.”  
  
“How did you domesticate them?” the Doctor asked, squatting down beside the farmer and scratching the Sunsail’s belly with one longfingered hand. The butterfly wiggled with delight.  
  
Amy grinned. The Doctor had been unusually silent, but he’d been looking at everything, soaking it all in like a living sponge. And, of course, he _had_ to pet the butterfly. She rolled her eyes.  
  
“Sunsails are territorial and migratory. They tend to have a home tree and migrate on a set route through a selection of others. They help pollinate the great trees,” Axel waved a hand around them. “They were here when we got here, we just took advantage of their nature. They’re as reliable as homing pigeons. We even use them to transport light goods, they’re very handy.”  
  
“You mean you ride them?” Rory asked, eyes wide.  
  
Axel turned to look at him. “No, humans are far too heavy.” He turned and gave the Doctor a conspiratorial look. “Not that that’s stopped younguns trying.” He admitted, a grin crinkling his craggy face.  
  
“No,” he turned back to Rory, “We just take advantage of their inborn nature. We make sure to imprint new pupae on our home trees as soon as they hatch. That’s part of what the safari tomorrow is for. We always lose a few Sunsails to predators and whatnot over the year, so Erik will be looking for replacements, late hatchers. They tend to be the strongest. As well as finding as many cocoons as possible.”  
  
“Why does he have to go into the jungle for that?” Rory asked, waving at the Sunsail standing right there.  
  
“Sunsails lay their eggs in the ground, don’t ask me why,” Axel said. “But fortunately they stay close to their home tree, so the hunters only have about 40 square miles to cover.”  
  
“Only?” Amy said in disbelief, staring at the Amazonian carpet below them.  
  
Axel shrugged. “Could be worse.  
  
“Now,” he grabbed Rory by the arm and sat him down on the stool. “How about you have a try at milking a Sunsail?”  
  
“Me?” Rory squeaked.  
  
Axel pointed. “Just squeeze those two pinchers together,” he encouraged.  
  
Gingerly, Rory reached forward and touched the two curved horns that ran down each side of the central spinner. They twitched and he jerked back, heart pounding, almost falling off his stool. The Doctor laughed and caught him, he righted him and stood directly behind him, bracing him with his knees.  
  
“Try again, Rory,” he encouraged.  
  
“Why don’t _you_ try it?” Rory demanded  
  
“I already milked a giant bat, this is your turn.”  
  
“Great,” Rory grumbled and reached forward again, trying to ignore the large, furry, warm, _breathing_ creature towering over him. He squeezed the two curved horns together and a stream of white stringy fluid flowed down the central straight “horn” and into the bucket.  
  
The Sunsail, Axel explained, used the two curved spinners to pick up the stringy fluid that flowed along the horn, and knit them into a strand. The substance stretched out and dried on contact with oxygen.  
  
Saying that, he leaned forward and unstoppered a small vial that was strapped to the side of the bucket. He squeezed a dropperful into the bucket as Rory got into the rhythm of the milking. It was rather like pumping up a tire. He looked askance at Axel.  
  
“Enzymes," the farmer explained, replacing the stopper. "It keeps it in a liquid state until we’re ready to use it.”  
  
Rory had almost a full bucket now. The stuff had a shiny, silky look, like liquid pearls. “How much do you need?” Rory asked.  
  
“We’ve bred them to increase the yield, so we’ll get a couple of pails per sunsail, on a good day.” He stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled shrilly. The sunsail twitched and ruffled its wings at the sound. A young woman on a lower limb trotted up at the summons.  
  
“Yeah, Axel?”  
  
“Take over here, Alexis,” the old farmer nodded down at Rory. Rory scrambled up with alacrity. Axel covered the pail with a metal lid and locked it down competently. The girl took Rory’s seat and drew up another pail. Axel shooed them all back toward the stairs. “Come on, still lots more to see.”  
  
Over the course of the day, as the sun climbed higher in the sky, Axel took them all over the outer branches, proudly showing off his farms.  
  
The Doctor was fascinated by the fruit tree orchards. Mature fruit trees grew directly out of one giant branch, growing all the way around it so that the trees at the bottom were growing upside down. Axel strode out sideways, walking on the trunk of one laterally growing tree and picked one of the fruit, he tossed it to the Doctor.  
  
The Doctor examined it briefly then grinned, he held it up and waved it at Amy and Rory, who’d stayed at the base of the branch. “Look! Plums!”  
  
One orchard limb could hold as many as thirty mature trees, the gnarled roots of the trees completely encasing the limb. Trelwins and Human farmers were crawling through the cagelike tangle of fruit tree branches, pruning, harvesting, and untangling wind tossed branches.  
  
When the Doctor saw the human farmers dangling under the limb, harvesting over their heads, he had to try it too. With Axel’s help he attached his chute harness and was soon dangling underneath the orchard, giggling and laughing as he accepted a handful of plums from a red and white splotched Trelwin, before dropping them down into the gathering net below him.  
  
All sorts of fruits and vegetables and nuts were grown on the farms. Rory was conscripted to help remove a large deadfall branch which had fallen into a branch patch of red bell peppers, Rory steadying one end as farmers at the other end attached a hoist and swung it away.  
  
Amy found herself swinging from her harness, harvesting bunches of grapes, a golden baby Trelwin taking the severed bunches from her and scampering along the branch to drop them in a bushel, ready for collecting.  
  
They all got tanned. And the Doctor somewhere acquired a broad brimmed straw hat.  
  
—————  
  
“Ugh!” Amy plopped down in her chair. “I’m bushed!”  
  
“I’m starving!” Rory said, grunting down into a chair beside her.  
  
The Doctor rubbed his hands and sat down in the final chair, at one of the small outdoor tables that had been set up on the platform in front of the single’s hall. “I could eat an elephant!” he said briskly. Grinning hugely as he looked around the atrium.  
  
The air was cooler here, the canopy affording more afternoon shade than out on the farms.  
  
“Well, Axel did say we could get lunch here,” Rory said.  
  
“I hope we can get more ripper fruit,” said Amy. “It’s funny, I would have thought they’d grow on trees, not those curly vines. And Doctor, please, take off that stupid hat.”  
  
The Doctor pouted but took off his hat and sat it on the chair beside him. “I think it suits me. Ah, Cindy!” he said expansively. “My saving angel! Thank you!” He took the mug of juice the girl held out to him, taking a big comedy gulp.  
  
Cindy set the tray she was carrying on the table, almost at her shoulder height. She was wearing a small towel tied around her waist and had the no nonsense attitude of a waitress.  
  
Cindy slapped down Amy’s mug on the table, sloshing juice onto her shorts. “Hey!” Amy brushed at her shorts. “Careful!”  
  
Cindy glared up at her. “You hurt my grandma,” she said in an iron-hard little voice. The girl had obviously not forgotten the events of the morning.  
  
Rory took one look between the stubborn little girl and his own red-haired wife, and buried his face very firmly in his own mug.  
  
The Doctor was grinning.  
  
Amy looked at her boys’ extremely innocent faces and scowled, no help there. She turned back to the little girl, who was still glaring at her.  
  
“Yes. I did. I’m sorry.”  
  
“You made her bleed!” Cindy slapped her on the knee. Amy jumped. Startled. “That was bad! You don’t hurt people!” The little girl wagged a stern finger at her.  
  
Rory snorted into his drink. Amy ignored him.  
  
“You’re right,” Amy said. “You shouldn’t hurt people. I only did it to defend the Doctor.” She waved a hand at him. The Doctor smiled and looked cherubically innocent. Amy scowled at him.  
  
She turned back to the frowning little girl. “You understand that I couldn’t let your grandma take him to the doctor? She was trying to help, but it would have hurt him.”  
  
Cindy nodded. “Because he’s not human. And he healed grandma’s ear after. So that’s okay.” She looked up sternly at Amy again, “But you be nice.” She wagged that finger again. Rory was snorting with suppressed laughter behind her, bouncing in his chair. Amy ignored him.  
  
“I promise.”  
  
Cindy nodded decisively. She laid their spoons on the table. “I’ll go get your soup.” She turned and marched off.  
  
Amy turned around and smacked Rory in the back of the head.  
  
—————  
  
Lunch was delicious, the soup was thick with fresh vegetables and crunchy nuts. There was a huge round of bread that Cindy set in the middle of the table. After looking around at the other diners they realized they were intended to simply rip off hunks. The Doctor tore into it, and they passed it back and forth, tearing off hunks and smearing it with raspberry preserves and some sort of sweet, salty spread that tasted like butter but wasn’t butter.  
  
They stared around, feeling like tourists at a Paris cafe, a colorful chute floated down past the landing, hanging bridges jiggled as people trotted across, leaves fluttered in a soft breeze, it picked up the Doctor’s hat and blew it away before the Doctor could grab it.  
  
“Aw!” he stared down as the hat disappeared into the haze at the bottom of the atrium. “I liked that hat.”  
  
“Never mind that, Doctor. Here, have one of these.” Amy held out a small brown square of confectionery. Distractedly the Doctor took it and took a bite.  
  
“Ooh! Blueberry fudge!” He sat back down and reached for another piece.  
  
“Doctor, look.” Rory nodded down, across the atrium at a lower platform on the next tree. Some workers were building a side room out onto the deck, using what looked like interlocking wooden bricks.  
  
“I used to have play bricks like that when I was a kid,” Rory commented. Amy leaned over him to see.  
  
“Makes sense,” the Doctor said, swallowing his fudge and licking his fingers. “They can’t build rigid structures up here, they’d crack when the tree sways, it’s all mortise and tenon, tongue and groove construction. I’d be surprised if there’s a nail up here anywhere.”  
  
“What’s he doing?” Amy asked, pointing down where an old, dappled gray Trelwin had swung down, grabbed up a couple of bricks in each hand and walked over and started adding them to the wall.  
  
Cindy wandered up behind them and collected their dishes. She looked down over the platform to where they were staring. “That’s Zeke,” she said, and wandered off again.  
  
The Trelwin wasn’t just placing the bricks on the wall like an animal might, in imitation of what the humans were doing. It interlocked the bricks correctly, went back and forth from brick pile to wall, waddling around its human co-workers with that bent-kneed gait monkeys used when they couldn’t balance on their hands.  
  
It wasn’t until they’d watched for several minutes that it became apparent it was building a pattern into the wall. When one of the human workers tried to remove a brick in an odd location and replace it, the Trelwin reached out with a long arm and wrapped its long fingers around the human’s wrist. It didn’t apparently apply any pressure, and it didn’t make any aggressive move, in fact it remained completely impassive, but it didn’t remove its hand until the man nodded and took his hand away, leaving the brick behind.  
  
“Confident old bird,” Rory commented. Amy had moved her chair up beside him and was hunched forward, chin in her hands as they watched.  
  
Once the wall was done, the Trelwin sat back on a small branch that overhung the platform and looked at it for a while, without expression.  
  
“That’s interesting,” the Doctor muttered to himself.  
  
Amy and Rory stared back at the newly constructed wall and realized the Trelwin had woven a pattern into the brickwork, not a recognizable picture, but a pattern that imitated the tree bark of the tree behind the addition. With the pattern included, the addition faded away, perfectly camouflaged against the bark of the tree.  
  
“They have an artistic sense?” Rory asked, surprised.  
  
"Hmm," the Doctor murmured, noncommittally.  
  
“Look, Doctor,” Amy said, “It’s that inventor you wanted to talk to.”  
  
The white haired old inventor they’d seen before, was standing stock still at the side of the platform below, staring intently at the Trelwin-constructed wall. The workers were laughing around him, sweeping up the wood dust. His white Trelwin was investigating a barrel full of apples at the side of the small store in the bole.  
  
The Doctor stood up, he tossed his napkin on the table. “Yes, I think I'll just have a word with...”  
  
“What the hell?” Rory jumped up. He was staring below.  
  
—————  
  
Aaron stood, fixated on the Trelwin design, his brow furrowed with the intensity of his thoughts.  
  
Suddenly Zeke looked up at the man. A silent snarl curled the Trelwin’s lips back over its large teeth and it threw itself at the hapless inventor, beating its fists against his head.  
  
The workers gasped in horror at the unprovoked attack. Aaron fell over backward, hitting the deck like a slab of meat, unmoving.  
  
Zeke slammed him on the chest, hard enough to make the whole body bounce with the blow. He grabbed the man’s arm and bit, drawing blood.  
  
The humans screamed in horror and outrage. One of the construction workers threw a wooden brick, hitting the Trelwin in the head. Zeke looked up. He saw the angry workers and the crowd from the store surge forward brandishing whatever weapons came to hand.  
  
The Trelwin spun and swung off through the trees.  
  
—————  
  
“Come on!” the Doctor yelled and pelted over the rope bridge, he pounded down the spiral staircase, Amy and Rory on his heels.  
  
By the time they arrived on the opposite platform a mob had already formed to hunt down the rogue Trelwin, men and women were streaming off into the trees, others were bringing in weapons, Sondherson was racing in across the rope bridge above them. “What the hell’s going on?” he yelled down to the mob below. An incomprehensible multiple answer floated back up, covering the sound of the Doctor, Amy and Rory thumping down onto the deck.  
  
“Let us through!” Rory yelled. “I’m a nurse!” The crowd parted, and the Doctor, Amy, and Rory fought their way through the huddle around Aaron. Nelda, was crouched by her mentor, rocking back and forth, patting his still face, there was the most awful reek of burnt cinnamon rolling off her.  
  
The Trelwin looked up at them with brokenhearted eyes. The Doctor knelt down and patted her on the shoulder. “It’s all right.” He whipped out the sonic screwdriver and scanned the body as Rory conducted his own quick examination.  
  
“He’s not breathing,” The nurse immediately cocked the old man’s head back, swept his tongue out of the way, pinched his nose and started artificial respiration. “Any heartbeat?” he asked between breaths.  
  
“No,” the Doctor said, sounding strangely subdued. Amy looked at him. Rory nodded, sat back on his heels, traced his thumb up the old man’s rib cage to his sternum, folded his hands and started CPR, rocking backward and forwards, pumping the chest with the heels of his hands.  
  
“We need a medic here!” he yelled over his shoulder before switching back to artificial respiration. Amy, helplessly, sat back and stroked the white Trelwin's trembling shoulders, trying to calm her down. Trying to breath through her mouth at the tear-stinging cinnamon smell.  
  
“What’s wrong with him, Doctor?” she asked, as the villagers milled around in confusion. In the background she could hear Sondherson trying to restore order. “Is he dead?”  
  
Rory looked up as he switched back to CPR.  
  
“No, he’s not dead,” the Doctor said in consternation, consulting his sonic screwdriver.  
  
“Heart attack? Stroke?” Rory asked. “Coma?”  
  
“No.” The Doctor shut the tines of his sonic screwdriver with a snap. “Every neural pathway in his body has been frozen,” the Doctor said, with a tinge of disbelief. Amy looked up at his tone.  
  
“Every neural impulse, every sensory nerve, every autonomic function has been halted in mid-stream.”  
  


—

* * *

_If you've enjoyed the story so far, please leave a comment in the box below._


	10. Chapter 10

"You mean he's just... suspended?" Rory asked. "How is that possible?" He continued pumping on Aaron's thin chest.

"I don't know, it shouldn't be," the Doctor said. "Keep working,"

Rory nodded and went back to doing artificial respiration.

A few minutes later, a group of medics pushed through the worried crowd, carrying a gurney and toting an incongruously high-tech medical pack.

"I'm the local doctor." A sandy-haired young man thumped to his knees beside them. "Any response?"

Rory shook his head and kept working.

"He needs full life support," the Doctor said, taking charge, shoving his sonic back in his pocket. "Heart, lungs, nervous system, the lot."

The young doctor didn't argue, he turned and spoke to his aides. They opened their medpack, it unfolded like a flower, full of collapsible trays and secret compartments.

The physician nudged Rory aside. Rory gratefully rolled out of the way and sat up on the rough deckplanks, head whirling. He'd been getting dizzy.

The physician ripped open Aaron's coverall and attached a palm sized, triangular device over his heart. He calibrated it quickly and flipped a few switches, lights began to blink and Aaron's chest started to rise and fall on its own.

Nelda held onto Amy and stared.

"Brainwaves?" Rory asked, getting his breath back.

The physician consulted a handheld computer and shook his head. "I'm not finding any brain damage. There's some bruising on the skull but I wouldn't have thought it would be enough to cause this." He set aside the scanner and ran his fingers through the old man's thick white hair, checking physically. He shook his head at whatever he found.

"What about his arm?" Amy asked.

The blond doctor looked at her, then at the Doctor who nodded down at the bloody semicircle of teethmarks on Aaron's ropy forearm. The physician scowled and picked up the arm, reaching for his scanner. "How did this happen?" He wiped away the dots of blood and examined the wound, he said something to an aide and was handed an aerosol can which he sprayed over the arm.

"Zeke bit him," Amy said.

The young doctor looked up with incredulous eyes. "Bit him?" he said in disbelief.

Amy nodded.

"Is there any chance of infection?" Rory asked, watching professionally. The young doctor stared as if coming out of a daze. "Could the Trelwin have given him something to account for this?" Rory asked, waving at the inert body.

The young doctor consulted his scanner again but shook his head. "I don't know. We'll have to run tests. I'm not aware of any disease that humans can catch from Trelwins, but this is still a new planet." He looked up at them, looking back and forth between Rory and the Doctor, face serious. "I hope it's nothing but a bump on the head." The crowd muttered around him, words like "disease" and "rabies" flashing from person to person.

The Doctor glared at Rory. Rory grimaced and shrugged.

"We'll have to take him in for observation," said the physician. "Run a full battery of tests. For all we know he's just got a swollen head and will wake up in the morning," he said loudly. With that bit of audience repair done, he turned to his assistants and they started preparing Aaron, shooing everyone out of their way.

Everyone watched as the medics maneuvered the old inventor onto the gurney and carefully carried him away up the stairs.

—————

The Doctor, Amy and Rory worked their way to the back of the crowd. Sondherson organized search parties. People were talking excitedly, milling around, confused, scared.

"Why didn't you tell them what's wrong with Aaron?" Rory demanded, under cover of the crowd.

“Tell them what, Rory?” the Doctor said. “We have no idea what this is, how it happened, or how to stop it. There’s no damage, no malfunction of the organs. No indication of poison to inhibit the chemoreceptors. The electrical impulses to the nerves and neurons have just stopped, midstream. Neither here nor there.

“Not dead, but not alive," the Doctor said. "All we can do right now is put him on full life support. We could wait until tomorrow, retrieve the Tardis and get some more sophisticated diagnostic equipment. But right now, I don't like how they're talking about Zeke."

Amy and Rory looked around and saw and heard a lot of frightened, macho posturing going on. This had all the makings of a lynch mob.

Nelda yanked on the Doctor's sleeve. He looked down and she signed up to him. Rory's eyes widened. He'd heard she could do that, but it was different _seeing_ it.

"What's she saying?" he asked.

"She's saying, 'the monster killed my father.'" The Doctor crouched down and patted her shoulder. "It's all right, Nelda, the monster's gone," he said kindly.

She shook her head, and signed some more. He frowned, slowly translating, "The monster waits."

Amy and Rory felt a thrill of terror run down their spines, they looked at each other, then out at the sea of leaves where Zeke had disappeared.

The Doctor shook his head and ran a reassuring hand down the creature's trembling back. He waved an arm out toward the tree. "It's okay. Zeke's gone," he told her.

Nelda looked up at him solemnly and signed again.

The Doctor's eyes opened wide. He stared up at Amy and Rory, translating. "Zeke's not the monster."

—————

The Doctor wove his way across the crowded boardwalk to where Sondherson had set up a command table in front of the tree bole store. He was giving instructions to his second in command, and tucking supplies into his belt, getting ready to lead a search group of his own.

"Mr. Sondherson," the Doctor said, "I'd like to join your team. I'd like to learn why Zeke would suddenly attack someone."

Sondherson scoffed. "Unless you can speak Trelwin, Doctor, I don't think that's going to do much good."

The Doctor pointed down at Nelda, who had ambled along with him. She sat and looked up at the two men, strangely calm, but focused. "Nelda can speak Trelwin, she can translate for us."

"Doctor, Aaron was the only one who could understand that hand talk he taught her."

"Well then it's a good thing I'm here then," the Doctor said, smiling ingratiatingly. He flashed a hand sign down to Nelda, she signed back.

Sondherson looked back and forth between the Doctor and the crouching Trelwin. "Do you think they're really smart enough to testify, Doctor?" he asked, with a faint tinge of hope in his voice.

The Doctor stuck his hands in his pockets and gave the administrator a serious look. "Zeke must have had a reason for attacking Aaron. If we don't ask, we'll never know."

Sondherson wiped a tired hand down his lean face, his hair blazing red in the afternoon sun. "I would dearly love to know that there was a reason for all this," he said quietly. He stared down at the Trelwin, she looked back up at him, expressionless.

"Fine," Sondherson said, handing him and Rory both an electric torch from the stash on the table. "You proved yourself useful against the treecat. Just keep that damned whistle device in your pocket. Or I might just let Erik throw you out of the tree. And you follow orders."

"Yes sir." The Doctor saluted smartly.

Rory handed his torch back to Amy and took another from the pile. Sondherson noticed. "You sure you want her to come along?" he asked.

Rory gave him a blank noncommittal stare. "She can keep up."

"Thank _you_!" Amy said snarkily under her breath, testing her torch.

—————

The search took them high into the trees. The mingled canopy was dense with smaller branches and leaves. The Yblins moved from branch to branch by hand and foot almost as agilely as the Trelwins.

The searchers yelled instructions back and forth as they combed the branches, looking for a telltale dappled gray hide.

The Trelwins were thick up here, flashes of brown and gold and red and white hides darted from branch to branch as the Trelwins, picking up the humans' nervousness, herded their young away, scattering out of the humans' path.

Suddenly, creatures the Yblins had indulgently treated as harmless mascots had taken on a sinister edge. The humans were nervous and leery, many of the young men boasting loudly, as a way of whistling in the dark.

"Surely something like this has happened before?" the Doctor asked Steve, the young man they'd first met, who was walking beside him. Amy, Rory and Sondherson ranged ahead.

Steve, shook his head. "Never. I haven't _ever_ heard of a Trelwin attacking a human, except in self defense," he said, wide eyed.

"They need self defense a lot?" the Doctor asked, pushing aside a leafy branch and watching as a mother Trelwin herded a spotted chubbling ahead of her, keeping herself between the humans and her child.

Steve saw the direction of his gaze. "There's always a few idiots," he said, shamefaced, trying to ignore the shouts around them. "I don't understand," he said, with the hurt, bewildered look of someone's who's just discovered the world isn't a nice place. "We've always got on well with the Trelwins. They even help me, out on the generator branches, when I'm changing out the batteries and checking the spindle rotors. They've never tried to hurt me!"

"Just keep that in mind," the Doctor said, patting the young man on the shoulder. "That's why we're out here. Not to hurt anybody, just to find out why."

—————

There was a crashing of foliage and a yell from Erik several stories down. A large, silver-gray body flashed past the Doctor's nose. He jerked back and recognized the old artist Trelwin even as he felt his center of gravity decide to go on vacation.

He fell. His heel skidded on the rough bark of the branch, he felt Steve grab at his wrist and his hand glance bruisingly away as gravity dragged him down. Somewhere in the distance he heard Amy scream his name.

Then there was just the rushing of wind in his ears and the sickening feeling that he'd been here before. There was a split second of blind panic, he wasn't _touching_ anything, there was nothing to hold onto. Branches flashed past, the horrified stares of other watchers were there and gone before he could register them. Twigs slapped and scratched at him, he grabbed for them but they sliced away before he could get a grip.

Suddenly his mind cleared and he remembered the screamer. He slammed a hand on his lapel and the screamer button started shrieking, drowning out the sound of the wind, the yelling of would-be rescuers.

He reached for his chute, then stopped, they were so high, and the branches so thick here it would be almost suicide to deploy a chute among all these close sharp branches. He'd have to wait until he was lower, in more open air.

On the other hand, there were all these close sharp branches. For a second he was glad he was facing upward and couldn't see what was approaching him from below.

With a grimace, the siren screaming in his ear, wind whipping his lapels so they slapped him in the chin, he twisted. Best to see what was coming.

Something slammed into him.

He grunted and felt himself rammed sideways into a thick branch. His chute deployed with a kicking "Pfft!"

With a jerk, he slipped down and found himself dangling from his chute lines, the limp billows of his parachute wafted over the branch above him and brushed against the back of his hair.

Zeke hung down by one hand from a smaller branch a few feet in front of him.

"Oh, hello," he said.

His head stopped whirling and his eyes focused properly. The elder Trelwin cocked his head and looked at him. By the shouts coming from above, he'd fallen below the level of searchers. The Trelwin calmly leaned forward and pushed one long suedey finger on his lapel. The siren cut out.

"Thank you," the Doctor said. "That's much better." He was swinging gently in the breeze, the chute harness pinching slightly in delicate locations. He ignored it. "Can you understand me?"

The breeze shifted and wafted a scent of burnt cinnamon and licorice and, strangely, butterscotch, to him.

"Oh," the Doctor said, "So that's how you communicate?"

Suddenly there was a huge blast of the smell of red. He had no idea how something could smell red, but it did. As his eyes watered at the intensity of the smell, he felt something tug at his chute.

He looked up. A big, burly, completely black Trelwin was gathering up his parachute and tugging on his chute harness.

"Oh, uhm..." His feet pedaled helplessly in the air. "I really don't think you should do that," he commented, his voice much calmer than the sudden frantic beating of his hearts. The sound of the searchers was descending toward him, but was still too far away to help.

Another large brownish-red Trelwin, with one white foot (he noticed for some unfathomable reason) joined the black one and together they bundled up his chute in a wad and grabbed his chute lines, holding him out over the endless drop.

"Really," the Doctor said, looking at the dispassionate gray face in front of his, his hearts fighting for space in his throat, "I only wanted to ask you a few questions."

The burly Trelwins yanked.

He screamed.

Just a little bit.

—————

The Doctor's feet set down on a wide branch. Amy engulfed him in a bone crunching embrace, almost setting him off balance again.

The Trelwin above him steadied him, waited until he'd caught his balance, then dropped the chute lines and his limp parachute on top of his head.

He fought loose of the silky material. Very carefully. He could hear Rory yelling something from beyond its muffling folds.

"What?" he shouted, finally getting the silk to let go of his hair and fall down his back.

"I said," Rory said, disgustedly. "Just shrug your shoulders."

The Doctor looked at him blankly, then shrugged his shoulders with a deliberate cartoony motion. There was a "zipping" sound and a feel of vibration against his shoulder blades, and the parachute sucked back into its casing, sealing off with an audible "shloop."

"Oh!" he said, with a wide surprised grin. "That's nice!"

"You forgot," Rory said, staring in disbelief. "After all those parachute lessons, you forgot."

The Doctor shrugged again and stuffed his hands in his pockets, rocking back and forth on his heels. Everyone was staring at him. "Wasn't much chance to use it before."

Sondherson stood behind Rory, staring over his shoulder. "What did you say to them?" he asked in disbelief.

The Trelwin had ferried him up the tree, hand over hand, passing his chute lines from one pair of Trelwin to the next, carrying him up the tree like some sort of bucket chain, before setting him back down on the branch beside his friends.

"There must have been dozens of them!" Steve said, gaping.

"Yes, well," the Doctor said, "It's always nice to have good neighbors."

"You could have been killed!' Amy said, slapping him on the shoulder.

"Yes, but I wasn't."

He turned to Sondherson. "I saw Zeke. He's the one who stopped my fall. He arranged all this. Whatever happened with Aaron, I don't think it was a deliberate attempt to kill him."

Sondherson just shook his head, his hair blazing even redder in the setting sun. "I'll pass word not to shoot first. This exhibition might calm down some of the more radical elements. But we still have to capture him, if only so we can test him to see if he gave anything to Aaron."

He turned and whispered something to a brown haired young woman beside him. She nodded and trotted off down the branch.

Sondherson turned back. "Where's Zeke?"

The Doctor looked down through the branches, from this height he couldn't even see the ground. "I don't know, I haven't seen him since they started hoisting me up." He looked around. "Where's Nelda?" She'd been paralleling him before his fall.

"She took off as soon as you fell," Amy said. "I think she was trying to catch you." She looked around. There were no Trelwin anywhere around them now. "They can really propel themselves with those long arms of theirs," she added, inconsequentially.

"Oh, yes," the Doctor said, looking down into the misty depths, ignoring his left heart, which was still trying to crawl up his windpipe. "Lots of leverage with those arms."

—————

The search continued until moonrise. The sunset faded. They traced their way back down to where the Doctor had been saved by Zeke. But there was no sign of the elder Trelwin.

The moonlight was bright. There were a billion stars adding their cool light. The branches turned silvery under their feet in the moonglow, the air darkening to a crystal clear indigo.

In the thickets, where the moonlight didn't penetrate, people started turning on their electric torches. The branches and occasional Trelwin face took on a demonic aspect as they were caught briefly in the torchbeams.

Amy's foot slipped. She clutched at the Doctor's jacket and almost pulled him over again. Rory grabbed them both.

Sondherson, who was following behind them, spoke up, "You three get back to the guest hall."

The Doctor started to protest. Sondherson held up a hand, all but invisible in the dark. "You're due on safari in the morning. You'll need your sleep. Leave this to us. We'll either find him, or run him out of the tree. Either way, it's not your problem any longer.

"Steve," he said before the Doctor could interrupt. "Escort these three back to town." He handed the young man his torch. "Take the easy way, and if you see Erik and his crew, tell them to knock off for the night. And remind everyone to bar their windows and doors."

"You really think that's necessary?" the Doctor asked as Steve waved Amy and Rory after him.

Sondherson gave the Doctor a weary shrug, "We still don't know why Zeke attacked Aaron. We've no guarantee it won't happen again. I've got a lot of nervous people back in town. Better safe than sorry."

—————

Jake closed the hall doors firmly behind them. He dropped the bar across its brackets. He indicated the sandwiches behind the bar and told them to help themselves. Then he took himself off into the tunnels, apparently going up to his mother-in-laws quarters.

They sat and ate their sandwiches in a depressed silence. The whole town was silent, people hiding behind locked doors.

"Right," the Doctor said, after they'd cleaned up, clapping his hands together. "You two get some sleep, we've got a big day tomorrow, I think I'll just go for a walk," he said innocently.

"Oh, no," Amy said, grabbing his arm. Rory moved deliberately between the Doctor and the door.

"We're not sleeping unless you are," Rory said. He looked at Amy, she nodded back.

"But I don't need as much sleep as you do," the Doctor pointed out reasonably.

"No, but you've had a busy day. You can nap," Rory said, repressively.

The Doctor put his hands on his hips and stared down at the nurse. A neat trick, Amy though, considering they were the same height.

"I am too old to be put down for a nap, Mr. Pond," he challenged.

"This, from the man who was almost killed by a mosquito bite?" Amy asked, giving him a mocking look.

The Doctor dropped his head with a sigh. He turned and looked at her. "You're never going to let me live that down, are you?" he said.

"I might," Amy said. "If you promise to _stay in the room_ while Rory and I sleep."

"Amelia, you cannot blackmail me with a mosquito bite!"

"No," she gave him a triumphant look. "But I could tell River."

He stared at her, aghast. "You wouldn't."

"Try me."

—————

The Doctor lay in his alcove, on top of the blankets, his arms crossed over his chest, he kicked at the bed curtain.

"I'm not sleepy," he said petulantly.

—————

Out in the hall, a shadow passed over the moonlight streaming in through the slats of the transom window. The window squeaked open. A Trelwin's pale head poked inside, its nostrils flared as it scented the air. Its eyes homed in on the bouncing curtain up on the fourth tier of bed alcoves.

It silently crept down the wall.


	11. Chapter 11

"Good morning, Ponds! Time to go get the Tardis." The Doctor saluted them with a mug of cider from the bar as they stumbled from the bed wall, still sporting bed hair.

"You're remarkably cheerful this morning, Doctor," Amy said. "Did they find Zeke?"

"Did Aaron wake up?" Rory asked.

"Nope. But those aren't a problem. Once we get the Tardis we can do a few scans and clear this whole thing up!"

"Why am I suspicious of your mood?" Rory asked.

"Because you're a very old and cynical soul, Rory," the Doctor said cheerfully, draping an arm around each of them.

Rory leaned out past him and looked at Amy. She grimaced with a look that said, _"How should I know?"_

The Doctor clapped them both on the shoulders. "Come on, eat up. I'm interested to find out what this jungle's like."

—————

Amy and Rory sat at one of the benches and thanked Jake as he set bowls of creamy, sugared grains in front of them. And another bowl holding cool water and a stack of small towels in the center. Soaking wet.

Amy and Rory looked around at the regulars who were eating breakfast at the other tables.

"Oh!" Amy said, with a grin. She reached for one of the soaked towels, wrung it out and washed off her face and neck and arms. Rory did the same. She sighed with satisfaction, feeling much cooler and cleaner. She dropped the used towel back in the bowl, in the water beside the depleted stack.

"What a very civilized custom." Amy said, grinning. "I wonder what they do for showers around here?"

"Don't know," Rory said, attacking his porridge. He nodded over to where the Doctor stood across the room, talking with Emma.

"What's up with him?" Rory whispered, under cover of eating. "Why's he so happy? After yesterday, I'd expect him to be all wound up and worried, it doesn't make sense," Rory said.

Amy peered over her shoulder.

"You know him, " Amy said, softly. "When he gets all mysterious and cheerful, he's up to something."

"So what do we do?"

Amy shrugged. "Play along. And keep our eyes open."

—————

Sondherson walked into the hall through the big double doors, looking worn and tired, he was followed by Shale, the small, scrappy hunter they'd met during the treecat hunt.

"Deran!" one of the crowd yelled from the back of the hall, raising a hand to draw the administrator's attention. "What news? How's Aaron?"

Everyone quieted and all eyes turned to the administrator.

Sondherson held up a hand and put on a parade ground voice, projecting his voice into the cavernous room. "Aaron still isn't awake yet, but he's stable." There was a mass of relieved sighs around the room. "Doctor Harris say's that something is inhibiting the free flow of energy in his neurons. They're running tests to find out what it is. He says it could be anything from a neurotoxin, to a new form of stroke. They're working on it.

"In the meantime," Sondherson continued. "The grove has been thoroughly searched, both last night and this morning. We haven't found any sign of Zeke. Guards have been stationed all around the perimeter of town, and anyone working in the outer branches is asked to keep an eye open. If you do see Zeke, don't try to follow him, report it to the nearest guard. We're treating this as a rabid animal incident."

Another hand went up. "What if it starts to affect the others?" There was a rumble of disquiet at that.

Sondherson waved it down. "So far, Zeke seems to be the only one affected. All the other Trelwin are behaving normally. But it only makes sense to keep your eyes open. If you notice anything unusual, report it to a guard, or to one of my aides, I'll have them circulating all day, and my office is always open.

"Do not!" He pointed a finger at the crowd in general, "Start picking on the Trelwins. They seem to be as surprised about this as we are. Let's keep calm, and keep the peace. If I find any human picking on a Trelwin that person will spend the day in the stocks. Is that understood?"

There was a general mumble of, "Yes sir."

"Good." Sondherson nodded. "Spread the word. As far as we know right now, Zeke is an isolated case."

"Maybe he just didn't care for the art critique," some wiseguy yelled from the back. There was a mixture of nervous laughter and groans at that crass joke, and someone threw a breakfast roll at the punster.

But Sondherson smiled and stepped out of the doorway as several people filed out to start the day's work. Amy saw the Doctor, across the room, standing with his arms crossed and a satisfied smile on his face.

—————

The Doctor, Deran, and Shale all converged on Amy and Rory's table.

"Doctor," the administrator nodded, "Shale will be your guide downtree to join the rest of the safari group. Erik and his hunters are gathering below. But before I let you loose in the jungle, I'll need you all to sign these releases." He spread out three sheets of paper on the table.

Amy and Rory looked at the Doctor. He grinned. "Got a pen?"

Sondherson handed him a pen and the Doctor signed his name with a flourish. Amy and Rory signed theirs and Sondherson gathered up the paperwork.

"Shale," the administrator sighed. "They're all yours. Good luck." He sauntered out of the main doors, back into the sunlight.

"Well," the Doctor said, with an indulgent look on his face, "that was rude." He spun around with glee. "So, are we ready?" he asked. Rory wiped his mouth and nodded. Amy stood up. "Then, lead on!" he said to Shale.

—————

Shale didn't seem to be much of a talker. He simply trotted out and expected them to follow. He led them around the edge of the plaza, down to the smaller platform they'd first arrived on, and down the spiral stairs past Sondherson's office. They kept quiet, not wanting to bother the administrator.

He led them past the edge of the landing and down the huge stairs, around the bole of the tree, the lowest they'd been so far.

"How come these people know about rabies?" Amy asked suddenly, breaking the quiet. People streamed up and down the stairs around them, the panic of yesterday had apparently resolved into "business as usual."

The Doctor turned and looked up at her. "They're colonists. Virtually all Earth colonists know about rabies. It's an object lesson. Like smallpox. They're both diseases that can have connotations for people colonizing new planets. Rabies is transmittable between widely different species."

"Like dogs and humans," Rory said.

"Exactly," the Doctor nodded.

"And isn't smallpox what they used to kill the Indians in America?" Amy asked.

The Doctor looked at her in surprise. "Exactly right," he said, continuing down the stairs. "It's a reminder that while one group may be immune to a disease, that same disease may prove fatal to a different group."

On the way down the tree they passed a lot of doorways, a lot of platforms, and even bigger bridges between branches. The lower they went the huger the branches became. These branches weren't just connected by rope footbridges, but by actual wooden bridges, some of them covered. They were sturdy affairs made of wood planks with handrails, wide enough for four people to walk abreast, or to easily transport goods.

"Good grief! They have carts up here!" Rory said, watching a man-drawn cart, piled high with bundles, clattering its way across one of the bridges.

There was a lot of bustle at these lower levels as they passed out of the residential and commercial areas into the more industrial portions of the community. There was a guard at every landing, and they didn't see any Trelwins.

"Why does everyone run around outside?" Rory asked, as he flattened himself against the treebark as another person rushed up the stairs carrying a crate on his head. The endless empty drop at the outer edge of the stairs was still disconcerting, even here among the larger branches. There was a much more grand, cathedral like feeling here, with huge branches arching over and below, creating wide open spaces. Leaves rustled all around them in the breeze, creating a susurrating background to the sounds of human industry.

"It's like when the treecat attacked." Rory said. "Why risk falling, or being attacked? Why don't they just use the tunnels inside?"

"Haven't you been looking at the architecture?" the Doctor asked, as they stepped down onto a truly massive plaza. He nodded.

Rory looked over at a wide, elaborately carved double door that led into what looked like a huge manufacturing space. A factory or workshop. A complex pulley system was raising and lowering supplies at the edge of the platform beyond the stairs.

Rory shrugged, not understanding.

"They're very careful how they carve into the tree," the Doctor said. He pointed up the face of the tree at its jumbled entrances. "No three rooms in a straight line, no one room or series of rooms goes all the way through the tree. Tunnels only connect small sections, the tree's not honeycombed with them. It's not a good idea to weaken the tree you live in."

—————

"So what do they manufacture here?" Amy asked.

The Doctor leaned forward and peered into the manufacturing cavern as they walked past, he twisted his head and surveyed the loading crates and some of the loads being trundled across the bridges. "Light bulbs," he finally said.

"Light bulbs?" Rory said. "You mean they blow glass here?"

The Doctor shoved his hands in his pockets, "Oh, I seriously doubt it. Some sort of shaped epoxy resin probably, like LEDs, only bigger."

"Lights," Amy said with a speculative tone. She stared up at the huge array of branches over their heads. "Can you imagine this place decorated with Christmas Tree lights?" she said dreamily.

Rory and the Doctor looked up. Layers and layers of leafy branches spiraled away endlessly over their heads. The Doctor smiled.

—————

Erik was waiting for them at the edge of the platform, above the stairs. He nodded Shale down ahead of him, and waved impatiently at the biologists. "Come on, lollygaggers," he yelled once they were in range, "Now's not the time for sightseeing."

Amy, the Doctor, and Rory trotted up.

"Why do you manufacture lights here?" Rory asked as the big hunter started herding them down the stairs. Secondary growth had resulted in smaller branches growing over the stairs here, giving shade and a feeling of closeness, like they were in an opensided tunnel.

Erik's big voice boomed behind him. "People got to make a living."

"But why do you need so many lights?" Rory persisted, picking his way down the stairs. He and Amy were more confident now, but he still stayed close to the tree bark.

Erik snorted. "We don't. You think we're the only grove on Yblis?"

Rory looked back at him. Erik looked impatient, the Doctor was smiling. "You can't colonize a planet with only one city, Rory," the Doctor said. "And any community needs trade, especially if they're going to be buying things from off planet."

"Exactly," Erik said, his voice gruff.

"But you're hunters," Amy said.

Erik scowled at her, big brows beetling. "What's wrong with that?"

She shrugged and stepped aside as two men trotted past carrying a timber up the stairs. "I mean, if you're so advanced, why do you need hunters?"

Erik stared at her, then turned to stare in disbelief at the Doctor. The Doctor shrugged.

Erik turned back to her, he waved a hand at the vista, "You _have_ looked at where you are, haven't you?"

Amy and Rory looked out over the endless jungle, it was getting larger and more defined the lower they went.

"Ah," Rory said. "Point taken."

Erik shook his head at the vagaries of biologists. Amy grumped and they continued down the stairs.

They passed level after level, more industrial and manufacturing spaces, more bridges, more different kinds of businesses. Ropes, harnesses, a sawmill trailing sawdust into the breeze.

"Wait here," Erik said at one of the smaller landings. Smaller being relative, since it was still larger than any of the landings farther up the tree. He walked off to talk to the manager of what looked like some sort of clothing mill. Swaths of cloth of all different colors fluttered, drying on lines strung all over the deck. The air smelled faintly of dye.

Amy plopped down at the head of the stairs. She massaged her aching legs. "This tree goes on forever!" she griped, flinging a hand up. Rory sat down beside her, the Doctor looked around avidly.

Rory looked up at the Doctor. "Are you sure the Tardis will be all right? I mean, this is an awful long way down."

The Doctor waved that consideration away. "She'll be fine. We just have to find her." He continued looking around, his eager eyes taking in every detail, leaves, cloth, the occasional passing parachute. He bounced slightly on his toes, a faint smile on his face.

"Why aren't you more worried?" Rory demanded, frowning.

The Doctor looked down at him. "Who says I'm not worried?"

Rory made a face at him. "You're not exactly _fretting_."

"What do you know?" Amy asked suspiciously, twisting to look up at him.

"I don't know where you get these ideas, Ponds."

Erik stalked back before they could grill the Doctor further. There was something about his big, buffaloish presence that didn't invite confidences.

Two levels later and Amy had had enough. She threw her hands up, "Good god! How tall _is_ this tree?" She saw an army green parachute come floating down to land on the platform. She turned to Erik, "Couldn't we parachute down?" she asked, eyebrows raised hopefully.

"No," he said flatly.

"Why not?" she whined.

He scowled at her. "Because you're beginners. There's no telling where you'd end up. And I don't intend to spend the rest of the day combing the jungle trying to find you."

She huffed. "At this rate, it's going to take all day just to get to the bottom."

Rory tapped her on the shoulder. "Amy," he said, a sound of surprise in his voice. "Look." He turned her around and pointed at the big double doors at the head of this platform. They were the biggest she'd seen yet. There was a space shuttle inside.

Rory turned to Erik. "You have spaceships?"

Erik pinched the bridge of his nose, and appeared to be silently counting. He looked up. The Doctor grinned at him. It just made him frown harder. "Atmospheric shuttles," he corrected with forced patience.

Rory looked closer. It was an airship hangar. He could see technicians servicing the craft.

"Why don't we just take a ship down?" Rory asked.

"And waste fuel?" Erik asked. "You've got legs, a few stairs aren't going to kill you."

—————

They eventually emerged below the lowest level of branches. Rory stepped down off the last step with a feeling of surprise. His legs shook.

Space, nothing but space. The sunlight beat down, hotter than he expected. The wind whipped around the bole, ruffling his shirt and making him feel exposed for the first time since he'd gotten used to the tree.

They were standing on some sort of platform that seemed to ring the entire tree. They'd done one entire circuit of the bole on the steps below the lowest branches. It had been a bit of a shock to see the boles of the other two trees emerging around the corner. It had felt a bit like standing on the ledge of a skyscraper, and seeing other skyscrapers rising high and featureless beyond. He'd had a moment of vertigo. The Doctor had had to grab him.

"Jute, are we ready?" Erik asked as he trotted past them and joined the last of their hunting party, who were loading equipment onto what looked like a large mine elevator.

"Just waiting on you," Jute replied. He was a tall thin man, even taller than the Doctor. He nodded politely to them and shook their hands, dressed in the same grey-brown fatigues and leather as Erik.

Amy was surprised, and relieved, to see modern weapons in the pile of equipment still left on the platform. "So, no spears and nets today?" she goaded.

Jute picked up a machine gun and slung it over his shoulder. "No miss. We don't have to worry about civilians in the jungle."

Erik gave her a speaking look, but didn't say anything. When he turned his back, she stuck her tongue out at him.

—————

The ride down the tree was fairly sedate. When the elevator cage dropped below the platform, Amy was surprised to see the underside of the platform was studded with spikes, pointing down. Some of them as large as whole trees.

"How did the treecat get up here with all this?" she asked.

Jute rubbed his bristly hair. "Don't know, miss. Sondherson ripped a right strip off Eula when he found out."

Rory and the Doctor looked at each other.

The cage glided silently downward, there was no sound but the wind sighing past. It was a long drop, longer than they'd already descended the tree. And the air got hotter the farther down they went.


	12. Chapter 12

The elevator cage thumped down at the root of the tree.

Amy stepped down onto the jungle floor and stumbled. She righted herself then wavered, “Whoa!” Her head swum, she grabbed onto Rory who was having the same problem.

“What’s going on?” Rory asked, thinking it was an awfully fast jungle fever to have taken hold so quickly.

“Don’t worry about it, miss,” Jute said. “You’re just getting your land legs back.”

Amy scowled and wished the forest would stop rotating. “But we haven’t been at sea.”

“No,” the Doctor said cheerfully, jumping down out of the cage, already looking around. “We’ve been at tree!”

He saw the sour look on Amy’s face. “Sorry.” His grin belied it.

The rest of their hunting party was already assembled, a dozen men and women, busily strapping supplies into the carts. They pushed past the arriving group and started unloading the last of the supplies from the elevator cage.

Amy looked around. They stood in a lee between two of the tree’s giant stanchion roots. It formed a protective base, angled walls on three sides, only open to jungle on the side away from the tree. A safe place to unload and embark and disembark from.

“Huh,” Rory said, looking up. “I expected the trunk to go straight into the ground, like an oak or elm tree.” He laid a hand on one of the giant, wall-like roots that formed the blind alley. It felt cool and gritty under his hand. “But this looks more like one of those trees you’d get in a rainforest. You know, the one’s with all the big vanes on the bottom.”

“Buttress roots,” the Doctor said, inspecting the underside of one of the floating carts cheerfully. He bounced back upright and spun around, his arms spread wide with admiration. “One of the miracles of nature! You’ve got to admit, that’s a lot of tree to hold upright.”

Amy looked up at the top of the root which angled down from the trunk a hundred feet over her head, growing shorter as it spread out toward the jungle. “I feel like I’m at the bottom of a pie wedge.” She scanned the top of the bark barrier and blinked. Just for a second she thought she saw a brown Trelwin head peeking down at her over the root.

She shook her head and looked back down at their group in the foot of the lee. Leaves crunched under her feet, and the rich smell of dirt filled her nose. She had expected there to be some sort of base here. A guard shack, something. But apparently they'd left civilization behind.

She felt like an ant.

She and Rory and the Doctor had moved aside as Erik and his crew assembled their gear and checked their weapons. Erik reached through the bars of the empty elevator cage and yanked a bell pull that dangled there.

With a jolt and a clang, the elevator started lifting back up into the tree.

“Well, now.” He shouldered his rifle and turned, all business. “Introductions first, then we’ll head out for the coordinates of your transfer pod." He turned to his men. They all stood up and paid attention. "You've all heard about the biologists that have been making our lives so interesting these past few days." There was a general murmur and chuckling.

Amy turned red, the Doctor wiggled his fingers in a wave. 

"Doctor, Amy, Rory, you’ve met Jute and Shale,” the tall and small men both nodded. “Next we have Jonas, Brian, Eula,” a small, almost pretty man, with an open, honest face. Amy figured this must be the Eula who’d gotten in trouble on bolewatch. “Darcy, Kevin, Pickles,” who, going by the gear he was loading, was the cook. “Bill, Janet, and Silas.”

They all wore the same worn camouflage fatigues and hunting leathers as Erik. And they all sported a variety of knives and heavy artillery.

"Do we get weapons?" Amy asked.

Erik looked up and down her long, skinny, city-clothed form with disdain. "Not for this short a trip, no. 

“Let’s get going,” Erik waved to the three of them, “You three stay in the middle of the group where we can protect you. Bill, Janet, you keep an eye on them.” With a wave of his arm, Erik moved his wagon train out.

They trooped out of their artificial canyon, a wagontrain of floating, wood sided carts bobbing along beside them. The area immediately under the tree was fairly clear, still wooded, but not with the density of the actual jungle. It was like there was a small temperate zone right around the base the tree, between its huge vaulting roots. Before the jungle proper took over a little farther out, in full sun.

“Bill?” Amy asked of the tall, heavily muscled woman at her side.

The woman grimaced. “It’s short for Willhelmina,” she admitted.

Amy stifled a smile. “Not Billy?”

The woman glared down at her, a proper valkyrie glare. “Not more than once,” she said in a deep voice.

Amy nodded, grinning. The woman relaxed.

Walking in the jungle took more effort than walking on a pathway. Roots tripped her, bushes had to be skirted around, thorns and ferns and a hundred different types of grass caught at their feet and slowed their progress.

And that was out in the open.

Rory trudged along stolidly, not seeming to notice. The Doctor tripped along happily, nattering on about the beautiful birds and pretty flowers. The hunters proceeded carefully and alert, their weapons at the ready.

Erik led them at a fast walk, uncommunicative.

The Doctor accidentally startled something out of a clump of bushes. It burst out, looking like a knee high guinea pig. It bounded away, squawling like an air raid siren, all its fur fluffed straight out so it looked like a terrified cotton ball.

A rash of cocked guns snapped up, then just as quickly lowered. "It's all right," Bill assured Amy, "It's not dangerous."

Amy would have found the whole thing hilarious, if her heart hadn't been banging in her chest. The Doctor frantically apologized, even as he peered into the jungle after the creature.

—————

They walked for nearly three hours, paralleling the edge of the jungle, skirting the ends of the tree roots. 

It was hot in the full sun. Amy could _feel_ herself sweating, but, by the glistening on their arms, so was everyone else. The Doctor had taken off his jacket and tied it around his waist like a teenage girl.

Rory had tossed his puffy jacket in one of the baggage carts. Amy wished she had something to take off. She swiped at her forehead and then fanned the front of her shirt. "How much farther?" she yelled up to Erik.

The big man ignored her. She glared at the back of his head.

Something white swung through the trees at the edge of the jungle. She snapped her head aside to look, but whatever it was was gone.

Twenty minutes later, and one runny hose from an aggressive thornbush (which Bill had hacked back with a handy machete) and Erik turned them back toward the tree. They climbed over the ridge of one of the tree’s long roots (fortunately the rough bark made for easy hand and footholds.)

At the top they looked down on a high root that arched gracefully over a long, crystal clear pool.

The Tardis lay in the bottom.

—————

"How did you know where it was?" Rory asked.

Erik snorted. "Not much use having a high vantage point if you don't use it," he said. The Doctor nodded sagely.

"I expected it to be farther away than this," Amy said as she scrambled down the last few feet to the wide valley at the base of the tree. "This is even closer to the trunk than where we landed."

It was shadowy and cool here, alien birdsong twittered and sang all around them.

"She must have rebounded off the limbs, bouncing closer on the way down," the Doctor said, approaching the pool and appraising the situation.

The Tardis had fallen into 25 feet of water. A stream ran half under the arching roots of the great trees. It gathered into a wide pool here. Moss dripped down from the overarching root, casting shade to add to the shadow from the high canopy overhead. A few sparkles glinted here and there as sunlight shone through the leaves. But otherwise they could see all the way to the bottom, the water as clear as glass.

"It's spring fed," Erik said, noticing their appreciation. "We use the spring as our backup water source after whatever rainfall we gather in the cisterns. It's clean."

In fact it was so clean, Rory noticed, that no fish or critters swam in it, beyond a few water bugs skimming the top and a snake or two gliding through. It was so crystal clear that they could perfectly see the Tardis resting on the sandy bottom.

“Great," Rory said, "Everything's going to be soaked.”

“Rory,” the Doctor said. “The Tardis doors can keep out space and the Time Vortex, I think she can handle a little water.”

—————

“So how are we going to get it out?” Rory asked.

“No problem,” the Doctor said. “I’ll just swim down and pilot her back up here.” He untied his tweed jacket and tossed it to Amy. He shucked out of his braces, and stripped out of his shirt and trousers.

“Oh, not again!” Rory groaned and turned his back. Amy smirked. Rory grimaced at the hunters who'd formed a ring to watch.

The Doctor’s boots knocked against Rory’s ankles as he tossed them aside. "Cannonball!" the Time Lord yelled. There was a splash.

Rory turned around just in time to see the Doctor twist over and dive down, swimming strongly, looking like some exotic species of pale eel in the rippling water. Alien birdcalls and the rustling of leaves punctuated the silence.

The pool dropped off almost immediately in a deep cliff. As the water calmed they could see him swimming around the Tardis, studying it from different angles. He stopped and floated for a minute, watching, bemused, as a family of small green snakes swam by. Then he brushed his hair out of his face, dove down, and started digging at the sandy bottom underneath the edge of the Tardis.

“Your friend can certainly hold his breath a long time,” Erik said, ten minutes later, a bit wide eyed. the other hunters had gathered around, some staring, others watching outward, guns raised.

The Doctor surfaced, hair slicked back like a seal. “Ah, bit of a problem. She’s landed doors down.”

“Can’t you dig under?” Rory asked.

The Doctor swam to the edge and heaved himself out. He shook his head like a dog, water droplets scattering everywhere. Amy jumped at the cool sting of the cold water.

“No,” the Doctor answered, taking his jacket back to dry his hair with. “It’s rock just under the sand. And there’s no shifting her.” 

He ducked behind a bush and Rory tossed him his clothes.

“But what about Aaron?” Rory protested.

Amy picked up the Doctor’s boots and chucked them behind the bush to him.

Something hit with a clunk. ““Ouch! ... _Thank_ you, Amy,” he said, dryly. “Don’t worry about Aaron, Rory. He’s stable and in good hands.”

Rory looked at Amy in consternation at that cavalier attitude. Erik ran a hand over his face with worry, but didn’t seem inclined to dispute the Doctor’s observation.

Amy heard a prolonged burst of the sonic from behind the bush. The Doctor yipped a squeal. “Better, lower the setting on this a bit..." he said quite clearly, voice sounding high and pained.

“What did you do?” Amy asked.

“Just, drying my shorts off,” the Doctor replied, nonchalantly.

Amy clapped a hand over her mouth and burst into silent giggles. She bent over, snorting, trying not to make a sound.

The Doctor strode out from behind the bushes, adjusting his braces.

“What’s the matter with you?” he asked, seeing Amy bent over.

Amy chortled and gulped and squeaked out. “Nothing...”

Rory, “helpfully” slapped her on the back.

The Doctor ignored her. “Anyway,” he said, turning to Erik. "I’d love to come with you on your hunt, if that’s okay with you. Amy and Rory can return to the tree if they want.”

“No way,” Rory said. “Who knows what trouble you’d get into without us.”

“Right,” Amy said, having gotten control of herself. She walked up and snapped his braces. “Nice shorts by the way.”

“What?” he asked, offended. “Mickey Mouse is cool!”

—————

The Doctor waved at the Tardis under water. “We’ll have to hoist her up.” He looked at Erik.

“Well, we can’t do it now,” Erik said. “We’re on a silk safari, and we only have a couple of days to find and collect the cocoons before the sunsails start hatching.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to collect them after they hatched?” Amy asked.

“It would,” Erik answered. “Except the cocoons start deteriorating immediately." He saw Rory’s inquiring look. “Enzymatic action. Beside, the newly hatched sunsails eat them."

"Can't we delay it a couple of days until we get the Tardis out?" Rory asked, waving behind him to the pool. "It's got equipment inside that may help us cure Aaron."

“No, we have to go now. I'm sorry, but there's more people at stake than just Aaron. This safari provides all the silk we need for parachutes for the next year. Without them, we can't live in the tree. It wouldn't be safe. Also we need to find a couple of late-season grubs to train. Once they're hatched, they're useless. So your transport pod will just have to wait.” He waved a hand, beckoning his men. “I’ll assign someone to escort you back up the tree.”

“If it’s all the same, I’d really rather go with you,” the Doctor said. “It sounds fascinating.”

Erik stared at the Doctor, then at Amy’s excited face, then as a last resort at Rory, the only practical one. The young man just shook his head.

Erik stared hard at the Doctor. “You’re the type to follow me if I say no, aren’t you?”

The Doctor grinned.

Erik rubbed a meaty hand over his face, pulling at the skin. “Fine, you stay in sight at all times and listen when someone tells you something.“

He stared hard at the Doctor. “I really _hate_ paperwork.”

“We’ll try not to cause you any,” Rory assured him. Erik didn’t look reassured.

—————

“Okay, Doctor, what gives?” Rory demanded.

“What do you mean?” the Doctor asked innocently, as they followed the assembled hunters toward the jungle.

“Without the Tardis we can’t scan Aaron to find out what’s wrong with him, yet you're fine with that? We’re just going to go tripping off into the jungle looking for butterfly cocoons?” Rory said in disbelief.

“We had two options, Rory. One,” he held up a finger, “find the Tardis and use its equipment to scan Aaron and find out what is going on. Two, find a local expert.”

Rory flopped his arms in the air. “How are we going to do that!”

"I need to talk to Zeke.”

Amy waved her hand in exasperation at the mile high tree over their heads. “But he’s up there! What use is it coming all the way down here?”

“No, he’s not." He looked at them. "Nelda came to my bunk last night. She told me Zeke had left the tree. She also told me more about this “monster” of theirs. Apparently it only attacks Trelwins. They didn't expect it to attack a human, it never has before. But that’s all she knew. Apparently Zeke is the authority on the subject. I need to talk to him, he seems to be the only one who knows what’s going on.”

"I thought it was some sort of disease?" Rory said, frowning.

"It may be. But he's the only one who recognizes the symptoms," the Doctor said.

“So why all the secrecy?” Rory demanded.

The Doctor turned to him. “I want to talk to Zeke _before_ the Yblins get their hands on him. Before they start poking him full of needles and 'examining' him. It's no fun.” He spoke as an alien among humans. “I need to know what he knows.”

“And you expect to find one Trelwin in this whole jungle?” Amy asked.

“No,” he looked up and grinned at her. “I expect one Trelwin in this whole jungle to find me.”


	13. Chapter 13

Entering the jungle was like walking into a wall of water.

Amy felt like she'd been hit with a sandbag. She felt hot and heavy and irritable, as if the planet was pressing down on her, she could hardly breathe.

"Ugh! Doctor, has the gravity increased?" she asked, only half joking. Stranger things had happened.

"No, Amy, it's just the heat and density of water in the atmosphere. It makes you feel lethargic and heavy," he said. "You'll get used to it."

"I hope so," she said, bending over and brushing a hand across her sweaty forehead, panting.

"Here," said a gruff voice. A large meaty hand thrust a canteen at her. "Take this." Erik handed another to Rory. "Even with all the water in the air you risk dehydration if you don't drink frequently. You'll be sweating out more than you realize."

He headed back to the head of the caravan and Amy took a slug of the water, her eyebrows popped up, apparently the canteen had a chiller built into it, the water was cold.

She stood up and sighed.

"Better?" asked the Doctor.

She nodded. Bill and Jute were acting as rear guard, scanning the jungle around them, weapons raised. Amy took off walking again. The men followed her. She huffed out a breath and gathered her hair up into a ponytail. She flipped it around in a quick knot, securing it up off of her neck.

"I thought it would be cooler in the shade," she said. "But it's even hotter!" The jungle pressed in all around them, a permanent twilight with only the occasional stray sunbeam straggling through the foliage. There was no breeze, just perpetual, heavy, breathing heat.

They were walking down a wide, cleared path in the jungle, virtually a tunnel. Trees, vines, creepers, and ferns pressed in on all sides, but it was clear enough for the baggage train to float along ahead of them with plenty of space to spare.

It smelled like mold, but the bare ground was packed hard under their feet. "What is this?" Rory asked.

"Game trail," Bill put in behind them.

"What kind of game?" Rory asked, anxiously.

"Well," the Doctor said, sauntering along beside them, turning circles and staring at everything like he was in a zoo. "You know how big a panther is on Earth, and you've seen the size of their treecats. Now imagine a water-buffalo." He waved at the wide trail.

Rory's eyes widened and he looked up at the burst tree branches fifteen feet over their heads.

—————

Amy was glad to see she and Rory had been right. The trees here were big, but were normal sized trees otherwise. Draped with creepers, covered in moss, half digested by a truly vast variety of mushrooms. They penetrated farther into the jungle, leaving the comforting safety and sunlight of the home tree glade behind.

Rory was given a machete to help with the task of cutting back the occasional low lying creepers and vines. Strangely, she and the Doctor were not.

Instead, they were handed baskets. Jute shouldered his machine gun and handed out what looked for all the world like Easter baskets, complete with high handle. He nodded to a collection of bushes that were growing up right next to the cleared pathway.

Amy saw that Pickles, the small man with the Asian eyes, had handed out baskets to half the other hunters as well. For now, it seemed the hunters were intent on harvesting fruits and nuts from the edges of the jungle as they hunted.

"I thought we were looking for Sunsail cocoons?" Rory asked, as Brian, a tall, black haired man with hairy eyebrows, pointed him toward a small bush with pistachio looking nuts on it. He started stripping the clusters of nuts off with a quick fist, pattering them into his basket. Rory copied him.

"The Sunsails will be farther in," Jute explained, he was stretching up to pluck the small, ripper-fruit like berries from a slender sapling that was braving the tunnel for its faint share of the light. Amy stretched up beside him, plucking down the almost black husked fruit. She bit into one. It was crunchy like a ripper fruit, but this one was red inside, with a thinner skin and a tarter taste.

"Why?" she asked, reaching for more berries. Really, it was a shame they didn't have these at home. She wondered if she could find some seeds. She hadn't seen any in the fruit yet.

"The delicacies help pay for the expedition," Jute explained. "Not everything will grow in the tree. This way," Jute explained, holding up a handful of berries and dropping them into his basket, "even if we don't bring back enough cocoons we still make a profit."

"If Amy doesn't eat them all," Rory said, grinning.

"Hey!"

Amy filled her basket and turned to look for the Doctor. He had wandered off and was talking to Pickles beside the cart train that was still slowly floating along as the hunters harvested.

The carts were a simple wood slat sided affair, but with a pair of antigrav discs stuck to the bottom. The track here was fairly level, but it would be impossible to maneuver a wheeled vehicle over the rootknotted forest floor she could see beyond the trees.

Amy saw a white flash at the edge of her vision. She turned to look, but it was gone again. Something large and brown rattled the branches of the tree she was picking. She shrieked and dropped her basket, throwing herself backward.

A small, brown and tan stripped head popped up over the tree, a little monkey face cocked at her in blinking surprise and curiosity.

Bill laughed. She picked Amy up and dusted her off. "It's just a Trelwee."

Amy stared. The creature stretched up higher at the top of the sapling, looking down at her with jerky, birdlike movements. It was striped all over, and had the extra long arms and legs of a Trelwin, but it was only about as long as her arm.

It bounced in the tree, rather aggressively, or as if it was bored with the show, and sprang off into the jungle. Swallowed up almost instantly.

"Was that a Trelwin?" Rory asked. He'd watched carefully, not moving, ready to leap in front of Amy if necessary, but not wanting to cause alarm.

Brian took his full basket of nuts and shook his head. "Distant relative," he said in his deep, rough voice, placing both baskets in the bottom of the cart the Doctor and Pickles were opening out and locking upright. "Smaller, not as clever. There's lots of them down here."

Janet came up and slung a canvas bag full of guava-like fruits into the cart. "We haven't even begun to catalogue all the different species of them." The Doctor perked up at this scientific sounding observation.

"Have you managed to catalogue much of the fauna?" he asked, bright eyed, standing up just that little bit straighter, his hands wringing themselves unconsciously in his curiosity.

Amy recognized the signs. Something white flashed in her peripheral vision. She snapped her head aside and this time she was sure.

She walked over and yanked on the Doctor's shirt sleeve, before he could get too engrossed in his conversation. Rory followed her, he'd seen it too.

"Excuse us, Janet," Rory apologized. "We need to borrow him for a second."

The biologist nodded and grabbed another sack, striding off. Half the rest of the hunters were slowly walking along in a moving perimeter, guns out, scanning the forest around them as they all progressed slowly deeper into the jungle.

Amy and Rory faded back to the end of the line, huddling around the Doctor.

"Either Nelda's followed us," Amy hissed. "Or there's another white Trelwin out there." Rory nodded urgently.

The Doctor looked around cheerfully at the forest walls. "No, that's Nelda."

"Keep moving back there!" Erik yelled from the head of the caravan.

The Doctor waved a hand in acknowledgment and started sauntering forward.

"What's she doing here?" Rory asked. "I'd have thought she'd be safer in the tree."

"Probably," the Doctor agreed, stuffing his hands in his pockets. "She seems to think she has to protect me."

"From what?" Rory asked. He and Amy were still crowded around him, occasionally peering suspiciously at the forest. Somehow it suddenly felt full of eyes.

"From the monster."

"What?!" Rory squeaked.

Amy scowled in thought. "What does that mean?"

"I have no idea." the Doctor said, sauntering casually, keeping pace with the carts. "But she seems sure there is a monster, and she seems to think she can protect me from it."

"What makes you so special?" Rory asked, the waiting, chittering silence of the forest was getting to him.

"Dunno," the Doctor said, unconcerned. "Apparently, they didn't think it would attack humans. So this was a surprise to them too. I think she wants me to find out why."

"You mean, they think it's some sort of invisible monster that attacks Trelwins?" Rory said, aghast.

"Apparently."

"That's horrible!" Amy said.

The Doctor shrugged. "Every world has its dangers, and its own explanations. We saw how it affected Aaron. What must _they_ think?" He nodded toward the jungle. They turned, and saw Nelda had stopped trying to hide. The pale Trelwin was crouched in a tree, waiting for them to catch up.

"So, she's coming along as your bodyguard?" Amy asked, watching the Trelwin swing along parallel to the track. Those long arms propelling her across 15 to 20 feet of space at a time. Pale hide flashing against the dark backdrop of the jungle. She turned to check the Doctor's position.

"My native guide," the Doctor said with a smug grin. Rory rolled his eyes.

"Form up!" Erik yelled from the front of the caravan.

Amy looked up to see they'd come to a junction of the trail. A Y fork. The hunters stashed their baskets and bags and unshipped their guns, forming up in an orderly column.

"Alpha team front!" Erik barked, turning back to them. "Beta team left. Gamma team right. Delta rear. Doctor, you're with me!"

The Doctor gave Amy and Rory a mocking salute and trotted up to the front.

Erik led them down the left fork, deeper into the jungle. Out of the twilight gloom and into the jungle proper.

"I feel like Tarzan in deepest darkest Africa," Amy muttered as the cheerfully lit trail fell away behind them and the jungle pressed in with its green gloom.

"Who's Tarzan?" Bill asked.

Amy looked up at her in surprise. "Oh... nevermind."

They split up, stretching out along the narrower trail. Everyone seemed to know where they were supposed to go. Bill and Jute made up Beta team and drew Amy along with them, Rory joined Brian and Shale on Gamma team on the other side, Darcy, Kevin and Jonas brought up the rear, while Pickles, Eula and Silas stayed in the middle and guarded the caravan and supplies.

It was even murkier and wetter in here. But somehow it had turned cooler, almost clammy.

"Is it like this everywhere?" Amy asked, thinking of the endless vistas of jungle she's seen from the Tree.

Bill smiled, her arms gleamed with moisture. "No. There's a band of high water table just here, makes it wetter, the plants grow thicker. You always get a ring like this around the great trees. We'll break out into brighter, dryer forest on the other side of the band. That's where the Sunsails breed. It's too wet here."

A Mayfly, as big as her fist, started homing in on Amy's red shirt. "Oh, hell no!" she said, batting at the giant mosquito and backing up.

Bill turned and swatted the spindly insect away with the flat of her machete. Amy looked around to see if there were any others.

"Didn't you spray down?" Bill asked.

Amy looked at her, her skin already crawling with imaginary bug bites. "What's that?" she asked, trying to keep a lookout out of the corner of her eyes.

Bill hung her machete on her belt and pulled out a spray can. "Insect repellant. Close your eyes."

Amy did. She heard the hiss of the spray can, and felt a mist settle on her, astringent and cool, like being sprayed with mint. Bill sprayed it over her face, arms and hands, the front and back of her legs, even her clothes.

"Okay, you're done."

Amy opened her eyes and looked down. She sniffed her arm. She couldn't smell anything.

"It works by emitting light at a frequency the insects find repulsive. It works on all of them." Bill explained.

Amy stared down at her arm, it didn't look any different.

"We can't see it, but the bugs can. We'd be a feast otherwise," Bill said.

Amy nodded. "Rory!" Rory looked up and trotted around the cart at her beckoning. "Him too," she nodded at Bill.

Jute pulled out his spraycan. "I've got this one." He held it out to Rory. Rory looked a question at Amy.

"Insect repellant," she said.

He simply nodded and held out his arms. Jute sprayed him down. Once done, their eyes skipped forward to the head of the caravan to the Doctor.

"Erik!" Amy yelled through cupped hands. Erik turned to her with a scowl.

"He hasn't sprayed down!" she yelled, pointing at the Doctor.

Erik looked at the Doctor and rolled his eyes. He whipped out a spraycan and sprayed down the Time Lord before he could protest.

The Doctor jumped back and spluttered. Erik said something. The Doctor calmed down and listened. He looked down and pointed at his wrist. Erik sprayed it. Clearly, "You missed a spot."

—————

As they exited the thicker band of jungle they spread out. Bill led the way into the tangle of undergrowth beside the trail, weapon up, Jute following behind, head swiveling as he scanned the area. Amy stumbled and eventually found her footing on the root-strewn forest floor.

"What are we looking for?" she asked, she'd looked over her shoulder and seen Rory and the others disappear into the jungle on their side.

"The cocoons tend to be webbed up against the base of the trees," Jute answered, keeping an alert lookout behind her. "The white stands out, so they aren't hard to see, unfortunately you have to be pretty close because of all this undergrowth."

"It's also a good idea to look up," Bill said, suiting actions to words. "Not only are there some predators that like to jump down on you," Amy shivered at the thought and found herself looking up into the branches, 'but, you can also sometimes spot newly hatched sunsails."

Amy nodded. She kept her eyes open, and stumbled along, her sock-boots were already encrusted with mud, making them feel like she was carrying a block of cement on each foot. She could see why they hadn't changed to rigid boots. There were so many crawling roots on the ground it was like walking on branches anyway.

It was slow going. The jungle was filled with the sounds of hoots, whistles, buzzes, and the shuffling sound of things moving in the groundcover. They spread out, but Jute reminded her to always keep the track in sight.

"Lose it, and you could be lost forever."

Amy was wet and straggly, her hair sticking to her neck, her shirt clingy and itchy and it felt like everything in the world was green. The occasional brilliant flower burst like a firework on her vision, almost hurting with its brilliance.

She had no idea what time it was. She couldn't see the sun. There was no sky, it was all blocked out by leaves and branches and creepers, it was like walking underground.

A shrill whistle split the air.

They stopped and listened then Bill grinned. "They found one!" Jute was grinning too, and waved Amy back toward the track. She could hear the sounds of the others crashing through the foliage as they all converged on the whistle.

It was Alpha Team. They arrived at the bend in the head of the track at the same time as Gamma team. Rory looked over at Amy, as if making sure she was all right, then they both looked at the Doctor.

He was grinning like it was all his doing. He put his fingers to his lips and whistled again. The rest of the hunters crashed through a few seconds later.

Erik was already busy spraying something on the dozen split open cocoons clustered around the base of the tree. The rest of the hunters quickly fell in, carefully cutting the cocoons away from the webs that attached them to the boles. They were laughing, and chattering. Pickles and Brian were unloading and unfolding more of the carts to hold the load.

Apparently it was unusual to find a cluster this big, especially so early. Orders and counter orders talked over each other as the Yblins worked.

Amy and Rory, however, were looking up into the tree. It was a typical rainforest tree, only about 60 feet tall. But it was covered in Sunsails.

Stained glass rainbow wings overlapped each other like a huge cluster of jeweled flowers. The newly hatched Sunsails hung upside down from the branches, slowly fanning their new wings dry in the muggy jungle air.

It was so beautiful it was like looking up at a giant bouquet.

"Oh wow," Amy said breathlessly. Rory, beside her, nodded.

Amy fumbled for her pocket, digging out her cell phone. The Doctor didn't like them taking pictures, but there was no way she wasn't getting one of this.

She sighted through her phone and backed up a step. Bill came trotting through, carrying a five foot long cocoon. She and Rory backed up out of her way. With everyone working, they had to shuffle aside, along the edge of the forest ferns.

Amy sighted through her phone again, she saw the Doctor crouching and examining a cocoon and discussing something animatedly with Janet. She swung the camera up.

Just a little bit farther back. She edged back into the ferns. Rory trotted over to give Pickles a hand packing the cocoon.

Ah, there, perfect, she leaned back just slightly to get all the Sunsails in shot. And her foot slipped.

She tilted over backward, her foot sliding into something cold and gritty, "Rory!" she screamed as she toppled over backward. Her cell phone went flying.

Quicksand glooped up around her, over her head. For a second everything went black and silent. She thrashed her way to the surface, viscous gritty quicksand sucking at her every move.

She could feel it pressing on every inch of her, there was no bottom, vaguely she could hear a commotion around her, she heard Rory's muffled shout.

She screamed. "It burns!"


	14. Chapter 14

The Doctor spun when he heard Amy scream. 

He ran, Rory was already ahead of him. He could see Amy flailing, beyond a stand of ferns, her arms covered with quicksand. 

"Hold on, Amy!" he yelled. Rory got there first, he stretched, but couldn't reach her. He lay down on his stomach and leaned out farther. 

"Honeytrap!" Erik bellowed. Everyone else dropped what they were doing and fell into a well prepared drill. "Don't touch it, Rory!" the big man bellowed. "Keep your eyes closed, Amy," he ordered. 

"It stings!" Amy half cried, half whimpered. 

"Doctor!" Rory turned, demanding.

The Doctor ran and yanked the slat side off one of the caravan carts. He hauled it over and plopped it down beside Rory. The end plapped into the quicksand beside Amy. 

The Doctor threw himself down on his knees on the end, anchoring it. "Don't struggle, Amy. Reach out with your left hand, there's boards right beside you." She was sunk shoulder deep in the gritty, tan colored mire, hair and face plastered with the goo. He could see tracks where she was crying under it, that was good, crying was good, it would keep the stuff out of her eyes. 

She reached out, flailing. The other hunters had formed up around them now, all of them quivering with tension. 

"That's right, Amy," Rory said encouragingly. "Just a little more to your left. That's it. You've got it. Hold on!"

He and the Doctor grabbed the slats at the other end and pulled. It was like trying to haul a car. The goop sucked at her, dragging at her, she huffed and whimpered, like she'd been kicked in the stomach, but she held on tight. 

"Slow down, Rory," the Doctor whispered. "That's it Amy, hold on. Keep your eyes shut. We're going to pull you out a little at a time, slowly, so the vacuum doesn't rip you in half." 

"What!" Rory yelled. 

"Did I say that? I didn't say that," the Doctor whittered. He gave Rory a grimace. "Just hold on Amy, almost there."

Bill and Brian stepped forward, they grabbed her arms, and pulled her up the slats. The ooze released her with a sucking plop.

Amy fell forward. Rory jumped forward, but Janet was suddenly there. "Stand back, Rory," she shoved him back with a firm palm. "We know what to do."

Rory looked around, the other hunters hadn't been idle. There were two large blue barrels of water sitting behind them, and a pile of large, elephant ear leaves. 

"Rory?" Amy quavered, eyes shut.

"It's okay, Amy, we're here, we're both here, the Doctor's right here with me."

"Doctor! It's stinging!" Amy pushed frantically at the gunk coating her arms and face. 

"Amy," the Doctor said in a firm voice, "We're going to take care of it. Stop struggling. Keep your eyes closed. We need to scrape the stuff off you, everyone’s going to help, but they can’t if you keep struggling.”

Amy whimpered, but sat still, trembling. The Doctor nodded at Janet. 

Janet, Bill, and Eula all grabbed leaves and started scraping the gunk off of her, careful not to touch it. It was gritty and tan, the way wood gets when it's decayed, not the color of the local mud. 

Rory was practically jittering from foot to foot with the desire to help. But there was only so much space around Amy. Erik and the rest had formed a perimeter around them, guns up, keeping guard. 

“Amy, tilt your head back,” the Doctor said. “We’re going to pour water over you to rinse the stuff off your face. Keep your mouth closed.” He nodded at Pickles, who was standing ready with a large bowl that he dipped into the barrels beside him. 

The Doctor nudged Janet out of the way and knelt beside Amy. Amy tilted her head back. He could already see that her skin was red and raw. Eula squeezed out the last of the goop in her hair using one of the leaves.

Pickles carefully poured the water over Amy’s upturned face. The stuff was sticky, and didn’t want to rinse away. The Doctor took a leaf and gently scrubbed at her face until it let go. Pickles kept pouring, bowl after bowl, slowly sluicing it away. The Doctor massaged the water over her closed eyes, and back through her hair. 

Amy whimpered. “I know it hurts,” the Doctor said softly, “But we’ve got to get it off.”

Finally, her hair and eyes were clear. “Open your eyes,” the Doctor said, throwing aside his leaf and watching carefully. 

Amy blinked open red, bloodshot eyes. He examined them carefully. “Can you see me?” he asked. 

She blinked, but nodded. “You’re a bit blurry.”

He smiled and cupped her cheeks. “That’ll pass,” he reassured her. 

Amy looked down and wiggled, pushing at her soaking clothes. Every bit of her skin that they could see was red and angry looking. “It’s still on me!” Amy gave an itchy shriek, standing up and pushing at her clothes. 

“Ah, your department, I think, Rory.” The Doctor stood up, and Rory jumped forward, grateful to finally be able to do something. 

The Doctor turned his back while Rory, Bill and Janet helped divest Amy of her contaminated clothing. He walked over and inspected the quicksand pool, throwing glares at a couple of the guards who were watching Amy. They turned around, scanning the jungle.

Nelda dropped out of the tree beside him. She looked up at him, then started rummaging in the plants around the edge of the quicksand. She stripped off a handful of leaves from a plant that grew around the base of the tree by the pool and started chewing. 

She ambled over to Amy. 

Amy was now sitting naked, scrubbed pink on a dry patch of ground, out of the infected puddle her scrubbing had caused. Her clothes lay in a disintegrating heap a distance away. The boots had apparently protected her legs, they looked her normal pale complexion. But the rest of her was red and raw, like she’d been dipped in acid. 

Nelda ambled up, studied her, then scooped up a handful of dirt and started smearing it on the newly clean, and red, skin of her thigh. “What? No Nelda,” Amy gently pushed away the Trelwins suedy hands, trying to brush the dirt off. The very air hurt on her clean skin, and the dirt was rough and gritty. 

She still stung. 

Janet tossed aside the towel she’d been drying Amy’s hair with. “She’s right,” Janet said, scooping up a handful of dirt and rubbing it on Amy’s raw arm. She grimace and shrugged when Amy looked at her in surprise. “Sorry, but the dirt helps neutralize the enzymes. It soothes and protects the skin while it heals.”

Pickles, who’d been standing aside handing out water and towels, nodded. He dug his heel into the dirt and swiveled a hole of loose dirt, he dribbled some clean water into it from the water barrels and stirred it with the toe of his boot until he had a thick slurry. 

Amy grimaced. “But I just got clean!”

“She’s right, Amy,” Rory said, reaching for a handful. “Besides, you know mud packs are good for the skin.”

“Oh, don’t you start!” she complained as he slathered the mud over the back of her neck, which was especially raw. She shuddered, but only part in disgust at the slithery feel, mostly in relief as the stinging stopped and the burn seemed to leach away into the cool mud. She sighed with relief. 

The others joined in, smearing the mud over her. Nelda took a green wad of masticated leaves out of her mouth and reached toward Amy’s face. Amy reared back. She turned her face away, Nelda’s hand followed it. ‘Whoa! Wait, what are you doing? Doctor, what is she doing?” she demanded, evading the Trelwin’s long arm.

“Nelda,” the Doctor said her name to draw her attention, then signed a question. The pale Trelwin put the leaves back in her mouth and signed an answer with both hands. The Doctor’s eyebrows rose and he held out a hand. Nelda put a pinch of the stuff in his palm. 

He sniffed it, rubbed it between his fingers, then ran the sonic over it. “Huh!” He gave it back. Nelda turned back to Amy. “It’s okay, Amy. You need to put that on your eyes.”

“What, why?” Amy said, still looking at the Trelwin’s hand dubiously. “It’s full of Trelwin slobber!”

The Doctor smiled, his cheeks creasing. “It won’t hurt you. The leaves are an herb, like Eyebright, it will help your eyes. It’s okay.”

Dubiously, Amy let Nelda pat the green mass onto her eyes. 

“Just lay back for about 20 minutes and let it work,” Janet said, as they finished covering her in mud. She helped Amy lay back. Rory draped the towel over her torso. 

“Why do I feel like I’m being mummified?” Amy complained. 

“Think of it as a spa day,” the Doctor said, grinning down at her, slathered in mud, green on her eyes, and a towel draped over her.

Amy grunted.

—————

Erik decided to set up camp. It was obvious Amy wasn’t going anywhere, and they were already a jump ahead with this cocoon stash. He sent a few men out to scout around and see if they could find any more cocoons nearby, and assigned everyone else camp chores. 

The Doctor ended up helping pack the cocoons on the cart. Pickles and Brian started supper, and everyone else alternated guard duty, gathering firewood, and setting up tents and hammocks. 

—————

“A carnivorous tree?” Amy stared at the Doctor. “I was almost eaten by a _carnivorous tree_?” she said sarcastically. She looked much better now, in the firelight, all the mud and herbs had been washed off. Long legged Janet had loaned her a pair of jeans. Eula, who was about her size, had loaned her a spare shirt. Her boots had survived and been cleaned. Her skin was only lightly pink now, and her eyes were much improved, they no longer looked like boiled eggs on steroids.

“Digested,” the Doctor corrected her. “The tree secretes digestive enzymes which forms a pool at its base that animals fall into. They’re slowly digested and the tree absorbs the nutrients.

“Jungle soil isn’t actually all that fertile,” he continued, ”despite all the plants. So any extra nutrients are welcome. I told you every world has its own dangers.”

“Ugh!” Amy said. “I preferred it in the tree. At least there all you had to worry about was _falling_ to your death.”

Erik set a plate of food in front of her. “That seems to be the general consensus.”

—————

They were back on the trail the next morning, the tents and hammocks packed away, everyone alert and spread out to look for more cocoons. Amy watched where she put her feet this time, and it took her a while to get Rory to go off with his own group, but eventually everything settled down into routine.

Rory didn’t like leaving Amy by herself in this jungle, not after yesterday. He had been frightened more by Amy’s obvious terror than by what had actually happened. He wasn’t used to seeing Amy afraid, and it unsettled him in ways he didn’t expect. 

He tried to shake off the feeling and pay attention. Brian and Shale weren’t talkative types, and scouting with them tended to be a bit monotonous, at least there was plenty to look at.

He tried not to think of Aaron, lying in some hospital room somewhere, comatose. He had far too much experience with coma patients to be sanguine about that. He hoped the Doctor knew what he was doing.

He shook those thoughts out of his head and paid attention to his surroundings. The track they were calling a trail this morning was off to his left, he could just see the carts floating along beyond the screen of trees. Shale was patrolling behind him, and Brian was a little farther in. 

They’d already found one cocoon this morning. It seemed to put everyone in a good mood. The jungle was fascinating, if claustrophobic. He’d seen several more of the Trelwees, and something that looked like a delicate antlered deer, except it was eight feet tall at the shoulder and covered with the same suedy hide as everything else here. 

Another of the puffball creatures had burst out of the bushes, wailing like a siren, flushed out accidentally by Brian. Rory’s heart had about exploded at the unexpected sound. It had scared off the big deer. And as it bounced away, Rory was near enough to tell that the puffy fur of the creature was actually some sort of feathers, fluffed out like a startled bird. 

“What are those things?” Rory demanded, as he picked himself up from where he’d fallen backwards when the thing exploded across his path. 

“Nuisances,” Shale said succinctly. He gave Rory a hand up and swung around to continue the search. None of the hunters let their guards down for an instant in the jungle. 

It wasn’t until after lunch that he found out why. 

—————

Amy scraped up the last of the beans on her plate and turned to Pickles with a smile. “You sir, are a genius. That was delicious! What do you put in those?” she asked, smiling winsomely at the cook.

“What she said,” the Doctor said, hair flopping over his forehead as he grinned and held out his plate. “Any chance of another helping?”

Pickles laughed at the Doctor’s flagrant mooching, he was already on his third helping. He spooned more beans onto the Doctor’s plate and watched with satisfaction as the Time Lord scraped them up with gusto.

Suddenly every hunter in the clearing was on his feet, guns raised, facing outward. The hairs on Amy’s body stood up at the abrupt transformation.

They were all still as statues, almost visibly trembling with strain. “Wha...?” She fell quiet as the Doctor grabbed her arm tightly. He was staring off into the forest, as tense as any of the hunters. Rory, beside him, was standing at rigid attention.

Everyone was staring at the far wall of the jungle. “Not a sound...” the Doctor whispered almost subvocally, the words more shapes on his lips than audible.

His grip was hurting her arm. 

Something beyond the clearing moved. Something big. Amy’s breath stuttered in her throat. It was like the whole opposite wall of the forest moved. Shadowed patterns beyond the leaves and boles shifted.

One of the big deer suddenly bounded into the clearing. Something lashed sideways, knocking saplings over with a crash. There was a crunch and an agonized squeal.

Erik fired. With a “pfft” like a rocket launcher, something behind the trees lurched sideways. And exploded. Half a deer carcass flew over Amy’s head. Blood pattered down into the Doctor’s dish.

The ground shook as something landed.

There was a sheer, shocked silence.

The Doctor set his metal plate down with a clatter. “I think I’m done now.”

That seemed to break the spell. Sound leached back into the clearing as the hunters unfroze and checked the perimeter. More than one gun was cocked loudly.

“Right,” Erik said, lowering his oversized gun. Amy had thought it was just some macho statement. “Brian, see if we can salvage any of that deer, venison would be welcome. Everyone else, get cleaned up, we’re moving out.”

The Doctor was already standing beside him, vibrating with curiosity. Amy and Rory joined him, feeling the need to be close, it wasn’t necessarily safer around the Doctor, but when things got scary, it was the place to be.

Erik took one look at the Doctor’s face and nodded. “All right, but just a minute.” He led them over to the edge of the jungle. Gun still out. Janet and Silas had joined them, also alert and armed.

Erik took them around the upturned trees and ducked into the edge of the forest.

“Oh my God,” Rory said quietly. 

Half the thing’s head had been blown away, it still had half the deer in what remained of its jaw, and it was thirty feet long from heavy shoulders to haunch, not even counting the powerful tail.

“It’s as big as a dinosaur!” Amy exclaimed, looking around uneasily, but her eyes were drawn inevitably back to the monster.

There was no other word for it. Patterned green and brown hide, striped like a tiger, pebbled skin, clawed feet, hundreds of pointy teeth lining a huge triangular jaw.

“More like a dragon,” the Doctor said, examining the heavy skull. It was as tall as he was. “A Komodo dragon to be precise.”

“But it was so silent! How could something that size be silent?” Amy demanded. There was something unsettling in that. Like it was cheating. Nothing that big should be able to sneak up on people.

“It’s a predator,” Erik said, shipping his rifle on his hip, the enlarged barrel pointing at the sky. “This isn’t a botanical park you know. Things get eaten here.”

The Doctor looked up from the bloody cavernous hole in the creatures head, it had taken off nearly half the skull. “Explosive shells?” he asked.

Erik nodded. “We have to. Regular bullets wouldn’t have any affect on something that size. It would be like throwing sand at it. Most of our ammunition would rip a human in half. Even then, we sometimes have to pepper the things to stop them.”

“I’d like to leave now,” Amy said, sounding sick.

The Doctor turned to look at her, he saw Rory’s face as well. “Yes, sorry, nothing to see here.” He hustled his Companions away.

Erik stared after them. “Biologists.”


	15. Chapter 15

They found seventeen more cocoons before afternoon. They had to shoo off a few Sunsails that were already eating theirs when they arrived. And they had to shoot one that refused to give up his snack.

The jungle started to thin out toward midday, becoming dryer and more foresty. With the better visibility they were able to spread out farther, and found another dozen cocoons within the hour. "Hah hah!" They heard the Doctor's triumphant shout as Amy was helping Bill carry an especially large cocoon back to the carts.

They arrived to see the Doctor prancing along like a cockerel on the strut. Janet and Erik were lumbering behind him under the weight of an unbroken cocoon.

"You found one!' Bill exclaimed as she and Amy heaved their cocoon into the last of the carts. Pickles packed it in, and started rearranging the cocoons to make room. Silas helping him.

"It's an unhatched one, Amy!" The Doctor said delightedly. As tickled as if he'd won the cakewalk at the fair.

Jonas ran up to take one heavy end of the live cocoon from Janet, she gave it over with relief. She wiped her forehead. "You've got good eyes, Doctor," she said, taking a swig from her canteen. Amy peered at the cocoon as Jonas and Erik maneuvered it up into the cart.

Silas and Jonas glared at each other, and Pickles deliberately sent Silas to help Erik on his end instead. Amy ignored the byplay and stared at the cocoon, she could faintly see the colors of the Sunsail's wings, pressing against the inside of the silk.

The Doctor stared with her, looking as proud and proprietary as a boy scout who's earned a merit badge. "Janet tested it, she said the hormone levels aren't quite high enough for it to hatch yet. So it might make it back to the tree for imprinting." He grinned and bounced on his toes. "Now we only have to find one more."

Erik hefted his end into the cart and dusted his hands off, letting the others secure it. He turned, "It looks like we're going to have to call you our good luck charm, Doctor. At this rate, we'll make our quota long before we have to turn back."

"Then how about taking a bath break at the falls, Erik?" Darcy, the only other woman, called from the back of the caravan. The suggestion was supported by all the other groups, who'd converged at the Doctor's hoot, and bringing in their own finds.

Erik looked at the six carts of cocoons trailing along after the supply carts. And the ragged, sweaty look of his hunters. Even the Doctor, in his shirtsleeves, with mud halfway to the knee, looked like he's been rolled in a tortilla and deep fried.

"All right," the agreement was met with a cheer. "Switch up. Darcy, since it was your idea, you and Delta group lead the way, Alpha will take rear, Beta right, Gamma left. Keep your eyes open people, we've still got quota to fill and another live one to find." He shouldered his rifle and stepped back. "Darcy, lead em out."

It was a cheerful group that made a sweep through the jungle. The forest was clearer here, the ground more level, and the walking easier. They'd all switched sides, so the unfamiliarity was enough to heighten everyone's alertness. Amy could hear the Doctor chattering off behind the wagon train like he did when he was excited, and wondered if she'd have to go save him before Erik shot him.

Nelda had been paralleling them in the trees, keeping even closer since Amy's accident. She'd switched sides of the trail too, swinging along between Amy's group and the Doctor's alternately checking on both of them.

—

Rory was liking the idea of a bath. He felt like he'd been folded up wet and left to mold. Silas left the wagon train and joined their group, allowing them to spread out a bit farther. Silas was another quiet man, but he made Rory uneasy, he had the air of a man with a chip on his shoulder. But since he did his work and no one else mentioned it, neither did Rory.

—

The caravan broke out of the forest to the sound of thundering water. They were in a flat, rocky clearing at the side of a gorge. Water and flowers perfumed the air. A stark cliff face rose across the gorge facing them, and a high silvery waterfall, thundered down over the stones at the head of the gorge, half a mile away.

There was even a breeze here, and everyone let out a sigh as the air evaporated the sweat off their backs.

"Why isn't there a rainbow?" Amy asked, as the different groups converged at the clearing. They immediately started breaking out provisions and personal supplies. Darcy, Kevin, and Jonas, Delta team, didn't wait for permission but immediately headed for the pools at the bottom of the clearing. A rockfall had blocked off a lee at the side of the river, creating the perfect swimming spot, out of the fast moving flow of the river.

The Doctor grinned as brown haired Darcy and Kevin shared a kiss on the run, Jonas shot an exploding shell into the water. With an underwater "crump" several things flipped away in panic. But otherwise it seemed clear. Kevin tossed Darcy into the water, she shrieked. Jonas laughed.

The Doctor turned and saw Amy's questioning gaze. He tilted to the side, staring at the waterfall. "Sun's too low, jungle's too tall at the top of the cliffs," he answered her question. "The angle's all wrong. Besides, it's cloudy. We'll probably get one if the sun comes out."

Amy frowned disgustedly at this contradictory explanation. "Where's Rory?" she asked suddenly, looking behind the Doctor. Gamma team still hadn't arrived.

The Doctor tossed a thumb over his shoulder. "They found another cocoon, just inside the treeline, they'll be a minute."

—

Rory hacked away at the webbing that fastened the cocoon to the tree. Shale had already sprayed it with the enzymes that would stop it deteriorating until the Yblins could use it. Shale was on the other side, prying it loose with his machete. Brian and Silas were keeping guard.

The cocoon came loose with a wet ripping sound, and Rory staggered backward as the tension gave. He grinned at Shale and the strappy man grinned back. This was more commission in his pocket.

Rory wiped his arm across his forehead, not doing much more than smearing the sweat. Something hissed behind him, sounding like a radiator about to explode. Something heavy slammed into his side, sending him spinning.

An eight foot long grub charged Rory like an enraged boar. It was between the guards and the clearing, they didn't dare shoot for fear of hitting their own.

"Run, Rory!" Shale yelled.

Rory scrambled up and ran, the grub right on his heels. Why would a grub have teeth?! his mind yelled through his panic.

He stumbled through the trees, and burst out into the clearing. Everyone there whirled, guns came up, but Rory's guards blundered out of the jungle behind him. Everyone was powerless in the crossfire.

Suddenly there was a huge burst of stink, like a skunk had exploded, and something erupted from the treetops. A brown, mansized shape.

A brown Trelwin hit the grub, knocking it over, wrapping all four long arms and legs around the writhing creature as it rolled.

The move allowed Rory to outpace the creature, get some distance, that's all he needed, somehow he still had his machete.

He subdued his fear, stopped and turned. "Get out of it!" he yelled, waving at the brown Trelwin who he recognized as Chitchi, the first Trelwin to welcome them to Yblis.

The anthropoid was trying to bite the back of the bucking grub's neck.

"Let go!" Rory yelled. The Trelwin looked up, saw his wave and leapt away.

Rory stepped forward with his machete, and with a two handed sweep, beheaded the grub.

—

The Trelwin crouched to the side, tense and alert, a fug of burnt skunk, tar, and black licorice rolling off him. He watched the grub for several minutes, apparently checking if it was going to continue moving. Everyone else was still shocked into stillness around them, it had all happened so fast. Darcy, Jonas, and Kevin were standing stark naked, dripping wet, pointing their guns from the side of the pool.

Once the Trelwin was satisfied the grub was actually dead, he loosened from his crouched position and ambled over to Rory. He pushed the bloody machete aside with one long meticulous finger and took Rory's hand. The stink had washed away, and he now smelled of cherries, licorice and butterscotch. Rory took that as approval.

Everyone relaxed. Amy ran over to Rory, the Doctor not far behind. "Rory!" She smashed into him in a hug. "Are you all right?" she started checking him over, frantically.

"I'm okay, Amy," he said breathlessly. He nodded at the Doctor over her shoulder.

The Trelwin pulled on his hand, it was looking at him with calm eyes but clearly beckoning. Rory sent a puzzled look to the Doctor and Amy, but let the Trelwin drag him gently away.

"What's he doing?" Bill asked, from where the others had gathered behind them. Amy shrugged.

The brown Trelwin led Rory toward the edge of the jungle, several of the hunters cocked their weapons just in case there were more grubs. The Trelwin stopped and pointed one long brown finger up into the tall trees. Zeke edged out from behind a bole and looked down at them.


	16. Chapter 16

Jute snapped up his rifle, both Trelwins turned to stare intently at him, Amy jumped forward and shoved the rifle up, twisting it out of Jute’s hands. “No!”

“But he killed my uncle!” Jute yelled, despondently. There were tears in the gentle man’s eyes. 

“We don’t know that, Jute.” the Doctor said calmly. He came forward and laid a hand on the taller man’s shoulder. “We came looking for him, he might be able to tell us how to cure your uncle.” His voice was almost hypnotic in its timbre. Jute stared at him, almost mesmerized.

Nelda dropped down into the clearing beside them. She looked up at Jute. She cocked her head. She took one of his hands and held it tightly, like a child offering reassurance.

Jute swallowed and used his other hand to wipe the tears out of his eyes.

The Doctor waved a hand at the rest of the hunters, motioning them to lower their weapons. If any of them thought about it, they might have been surprised that they did.

Erik walked up. “What are you up to?”

The Doctor looked at him. The Trelwins had relaxed. “I need to talk to Zeke. I think he can tell me what’s been going on,” the Doctor said.

“Right,” Erik said, reasserting his authority. He turned, “Brian, fetch a net!”

“No,” the Doctor said.

Erik turned and scowled at him. “We need to capture him to be sure he hasn’t transmitted anything to Aaron.”

The Doctor looked at him calmly, completely unintimidated by the buffaloish man. “Nelda helped cure Amy, Chitchi just saved Rory’s life, and they’ve all obviously been following us for days,” he pointed out, reasonably. “If they’d intended to harm anyone they’ve had ample opportunity. On the contrary, they seem to be intent on helping us. Bit rude throwing a net around a guy when he’s trying to help.”

Erik scowled at him. “This isn’t the time for jokes, Doctor.”

“I’m not joking,” the Doctor said in that implacable voice that could be so startling. “Let me talk to him. Nelda can translate. You’ve got more than enough guns around to ensure he doesn’t try anything,” the Doctor said reasonably.

Erik looked up at the old Trelwin in the tree, his speckled gray hide marking him out against the green jungle.

“What if he doesn’t come down?” Erik asked.

The Doctor rocked on his heels. “I think he will. If he does, do I have your word that you won’t shoot or try to capture him?”

“You ask a lot, Doctor.”

“I’m offering a lot, Erik.” The Doctor gave him a level look, it wasn’t the look of the scruffy, ebullient young fop. 

Erik sighed. “Fine. So far you’re the only one who’s stayed out of trouble. But if he makes any aggressive move...”

“Understood.” The Doctor nodded.

Erik nodded back. “Pickles!” he yelled over his shoulder to the level-headed cook. “You keep an eye on them.” Pickles nodded and jumped down from his supply cart, slinging his rifle over his shoulder as he landed. “Everyone else,” Erik yelled, sweeping the rest with his eyes, “As you were.”

—————

The Doctor went back over to Nelda, Chitchi and Rory. He signed something to Nelda, they signed back and forth for a bit, then Nelda looked up into the tree and a complex array of smells started coming from the Trelwins.

Amy and Rory backed away, waving their hands in front of their noses. Zeke slowly swung down out of the tree. The Doctor and the Trelwins retired to the back edge of the stony camp, where it met the forest, and hunkered down. Pickles took up a guard position and kept an eye on them. The Doctor ignored him, his attention focused completely on the Trelwins.

When the elder Trelwin failed to do anything aggressive, the rest of the hunters lost interest and went back to their own concerns.

Darcy, Kevin, and Jonas finished their interrupted bath, taking a few moments to toss a couple dozen stunned fish up onto shore for dinner. 

Amy volunteered to help Brian with the cooking, and Rory volunteered to help clean the fish. Janet was apparently taking some scientific readings of the area, making notations in a notepad she’d brought along. Erik and the rest stood guard, trading places in rotation with Darcy, Kevin, and Jonas when they finished their bath, so everyone had a chance to get clean.

Silas and Shale used the flats of their machete’s to roll the grub carcass into the river, where it was carried away by the fast moving stream. They washed away the blood with bowls of water. It wasn’t good to leave carrion in camp, it attracted too many scavengers. 

After a while, Chitchi apparently got tired of the talks between the Doctor and the other Trelwins and came over to help Rory, dragging the fish up from the river.

—————

The sun got lower, shadows lengthened. Erik kept a wary eye on the Doctor, but didn’t interrupt. He came over to mooch some of the berries Amy had taken out of the harvested stores to add for dinner. She slapped his hand. He glared at her and ate them anyway.

“How’s it going, Brian?” he asked.

The assistant cook looked up with a less glowering look than usual (it was the eyebrows). He almost smiled. “We’ll eat good tonight. We’ve got enough fish for everyone, and Kevin found a whole clutch of those sweet tubers everyone likes. We’ve had to build more fires to cook it all. Jonas and Silas went to get more firewood.”

Erik halted with a berry halfway to his mouth. “Together?”

—————

The first batch of fish was almost done, it smelled amazing, everyone started gravitating toward the cookfires, salivating, looking forward to their first fresh meal, while clean, and under a nice breeze.

The Doctor stood up from where he'd been crouching with the Trelwins, talking for the last hour. He stretched and his head zeroed in on the luscious smell of fresh flaky fish.

Chitchi helped Rory roll a log over to the firepits for a seat. From the cuts on the log it was obvious the clearing had been used as a camp before.

Suddenly Chitchi's head snapped up. He stared into the jungle. Beyond him, Rory saw Nelda and Zeke's heads snap up too, they were all staring in the same direction.

The hunters noticed and instantly caught the mood, their weapons came up. Everything was still for one tense, silent minute. Then all three Trelwins shot off toward the jungle, loping flat out.

Before the Trelwins even got halfway across the clearing, there was a sudden cry of rage from the jungle. It abruptly cut off.

All of the hunters dropped what they were doing and ran, Erik, the Doctor and Rory in the lead as they followed the Trelwins.

They spotted the men before the Trelwins did, passing the primates as the Trelwins slowed, and stopped before the scene.

Jonas and Silas were down. The Doctor and Rory scanned the area, looking for danger, but there was nothing. Just the two men, lying face down in the ferny undergrowth.

The Doctor and Rory rolled them over. Both men were holding knives. Not the machetes most of the hunters carried, but the smaller, lethal boot knifes, like the one Rory had filleted the fish with.

It looked like the men had been facing each other.

Rory quickly examined them for injuries as the other hunters arrived and formed a protective perimeter. 

They weren't breathing.

Janet arrived and took one look. "Medpack!" she turned to Shale, he nodded and ran back to camp, the fastest of them all.

Janet knelt down to start CPR on Jonas, Rory was already working on Silas.

Amy ran up, crowding behind the Doctor to see. The Trelwins sat aside, out of the way, all three were rocking with grief.

Shale ran back and dumped the emergency medpack beside Janet, he took over CPR while she rummaged. She pulled out two of the triangular life support modules and quickly calibrated them. She handed one to Shale, who attached it to Jonas.

Janet shuffled sideways and tore open Silas' shirt. She checked his carotid artery for a pulse, shook her head and attached the life support device. Silas' chest rose and fell. Rory felt for the pulse and could feel it beating, slowly but steadily, with mechanical regularity. He nodded.

He and Janet checked both men. From their positions it looked like they'd pulled their knives on each other. But neither men had any cuts.

“They don’t have head injuries, “ Rory said, sitting back on his heels after feeling Silas' skull. He looked at Janet, she nodded and shrugged. "And there aren't any Trelwin bites."

“No,” the Doctor said, plucking at his lip. “I didn't expect there would be. Aaron collapsed _before_ Zeke bit him, remember? Before he hit his head.”

Amy scowled. “Then what is it? Something airborne? Some kind of pollen?” She looked around at the almost insanely verdant forest.

“I think," the Doctor said carefully. "I think whatever it is. It’s spreading.”

He turned to look at the three Trelwins, huddled together, staring at the fallen men. "Nelda?"

She looked up and signed something to him. Even Amy recognized that sign.

"Monster."


	17. Chapter 17

  
“Erik,” the Doctor said. “I suggest we cut this trip short and return to the tree.”  
  
Erik nodded. “I think you’re right, Doctor.” He gestured to his hunters and they loaded their friends up onto the foldaway silk slings they all carried at their belts, chopping branches to form poles.  
  
They carried them back to camp, the others forming a movable guard around them, and settled them into the backs of the carts, cushioned by the cocoons.  
  
The shadows were already stretching across the stone clearing. The abandoned food hadn't burnt, Pickles had returned and saved most of it. But no one had much appetite.  
  
"It's too late to start out today," Erik said as the guards reformed their perimeter, everyone was feeling very alert. "This is the safest camp we're going to find, stone under us and water and cliffs at our back. We'll start back first thing in the morning. If we push it, and don't stop for anything, we can be back by nightfall."  
  
The Doctor nodded.  
  
“This is going to hit Angela bad,” Erik said as Janet climbed down out of the carts after settling the men.  
  
“One of them’s wife?” the Doctor asked.  
  
“One of them. Yes,” Erik said, with heavy emphasis.  
  
"Ah,” said the Doctor.  
  
—————  
  
On the way back to the tree they found a few more cocoons, but most of them were already deteriorating or half eaten. In the two days of the outward journey all the sunsails had hatched, with the exception of a few rogues such as the grub that attacked Rory. They didn’t find any more unhatched cocoons, and Janet kept a worried eye on the one they had, frequently checking the hormone levels.  
  
Everyone was tense, finding things to do to take their minds off the situation, paying extra attention to things that would otherwise be routine. No one wanted to think about what had happened to Silas and Jonas.   
  
—————  
  
No one dawdled. Erik, Janet, and the Doctor led the way. Although Janet periodically faded back to check on the two men.  
  
She rejoined them. “If whatever this is happens to anyone else,” she said quietly, ”we’re in trouble. We’ve only got the two life support units.”  
  
The Doctor and Erik nodded grimly. “Any ideas, Doctor?” Erik asked.  
  
The Doctor shrugged his shoulders. “Not enough data. But,” he nodded to where Zeke, Chitchi and Nelda were paralleling them in the trees. “They seem to be able to detect whatever it is. They’re keeping an eye on us. With any luck, they’ll be able to warn us. I think that’s why Nelda followed me down to start with.”  
  
Erik looked up into the trees. The three Trelwins, white, gray, and brown, swung along through the trees beside them. Somehow, he wasn’t reassured.  
  
They found a few salvageable cocoons on the way back, it kept everyone’s mind busy to have something to do. They packed them quickly, keeping their guard up, and everyone stayed close to the trail, keeping an eye on each other.  
  
They were taking the shorter leg of the loop back. It was unfamiliar territory to Amy and Rory, but they couldn’t find it in themselves to be fascinated. Their eyes kept going back to the one occupied cart, then darting back to the members of their groups.  
  
They didn’t have any delays on the trail back, although they did get blocked by a small herd of the large deer in the main trail. These were a different breed, just as large, eight feet tall at the shoulder, as what they’d seen before, but these were zebra striped brown and tan, with different horns. They were browsing on the berry bushes and small saplings lining the trail. A gunshot by Eula, using one of the smaller caliber rifles, sent them bounding off.  
  
Which was an impressive sight, given their size, and the fact that they could leap fourteen feet at a jump.  
  
They made it back to the tree in early afternoon. Erik called down the cage, using a communicator Amy hadn’t realized he had. They split up.  
  
“Janet and I will get Silas and Jonas to the medical center,” Erik said. “Doctor, you, Amy and Rory come with us. Eula, you and Shale get that live cocoon to Axel and the handlers, Pickles, you take charge of the cocoons and get them to the mill. The rest of you, help him and take care of the gear. You know the drill." Everyone nodded.  
  
“What about the Trelwins?” Rory asked.  
  
Erik looked down at the three Trelwins who were crouched to one side, watching all the activity. “I expect they have their own ways up the tree.” Erik said. “Although, I’d prefer they stay down here, at least until we can update Sondherson.”  
  
The Doctor nodded. He turned and flashed a handful of signals to Nelda, she signed back and turned to the others. Zeke turned and gave him a calm, level look. Then nodded.  
  
Rory’s eyes bugged out. Amy squeaked. That was the first time they’d seen one do that. From the sound of pans clattering behind them, they weren’t the only ones surprised.  
  
—————  
  
The cage landed with a clang, everyone helped load Jonas and Silas into it. They all managed to squeeze inside, but it was a tight fit with the two bodies taking up most of the floor space.  
  
They rose.  
  
Amy could feel the air getting cooler and lighter, the higher they went. The Doctor and Rory redonned their jackets, with their chutes sewn in, and Amy reminded herself to ask Sondherson for a visitor’s jacket. Eula’s safari shirt didn’t include a chute.  
  
They rose up through the walkway surrounding the bole of the tree, the platform eclipsing the massed spikes underneath, to find a group of people waiting for them.  
  
—————  
  
Sondherson had sent guides to lead the Doctor, Amy, and Rory, back up the tree. Janet and Erik took the two patients up through an emergency network of supply lifts that could be quickly cleared of merchandise in case of emergency. From what Amy saw of it, it looked a dangerous affair, unlike the safety of the cage going down, all they had was low wooden sides. But the hunters zipped up the tree much faster than they’d be going.  
  
Amy watched them lift away enviously. Then sighed and started up the steps, following their two guides up the tree.  
  
On their way back up the tree they noticed that there seemed to be more people around than they remembered from before. Business was still going on. But there was a tension in the air that Amy had thought would have dispersed by now, especially since Zeke hadn’t been seen in the tree in days.  
  
People seemed almost to huddle. For a people who were practically oblivious of heights, they were staying away from the edges, and close to the bole.  
  
Amy, Rory, and the Doctor looked at each other worriedly.  
  
—————  
  
They finally reached the platform outside Sondherson’s office. Amy heaved like a bellows, her legs trembling like jelly. Rory wasn’t in much better shape. Irritatingly, the Doctor still seemed fresh as a daisy, although a daisy sweaty and rumpled from days in the jungle.  
  
The cool breeze at this height was welcome, and they gulped in great drifts of it, getting their breath. Amy smoothed her hair back, and Rory straightened his puffy jacket.  
  
Their silent guides bowed them into Sondherson’s office. Amy noticed there were guards stationed on each side of the door here too. So, the tensions from Zeke’s attack _hadn’t_ lessened. It was a good thing they’d come to tell Sondherson what they’d discovered.  
  
They stepped into Sondherson’s office, to find a ring of guards, all pointing guns at them. Their two guides stepped in at their back, now armed, and blocked the door.  
  
The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck. “This starts to feel familiar,” he muttered under his breath. He ignored the guards and turned to the administrator. “Ah, Deran!” he said brightly, clapping his hands. “We came to tell you that Zeke wasn’t the cause of Aaron’s accident. We...”  
  
“Who are you, Doctor?” Sondherson cut him off, looming in front of his desk. “I’ve got 18 people without lifesigns laid up in the single’s Domicile, and four more who plunged to their deaths because no one was around to catch them when they fell.  
  
“We’ve had to start fabricating life support modules to keep up with the demand.  
  
“I’ve checked up on you. There’s no research vessel in orbit around the planet right now, and there hasn’t been for a month.  
  
“And all of this started when you arrived. So, _who are you?_ ” He slammed a hand down on the report on his desk.  
  
“Ah,” the Doctor said, holding up a tentative finger. “That’s a bit hard to explain.”  
  
Sondherson looked meaningfully at his men, guns cocked all around them.  
  
“Then I suggest you speak quickly!”  
  
—————  
  
The Doctor explained, with the usual roundaboutation.  
  
Sondherson glared at him when he was done. “Do you honestly expect me to believe that you are just a group of tourists who happened to blunder across a planet at the butt end of a wormhole?!” Sondherson was staring at them with a sort of chalky rage.  
  
“Yes, that’s...” the Doctor stated calmly.  
  
“I’ll do you one better, _Doctor_ ,” the administrator said with restrained sarcasm. It hadn’t helped that news had arrived of another victim, who’d just been brought in.  
  
“I say you’re from some kind of rival biological firm, here to find, god knows what, discovery. Who knows what Aaron was working on that you might have got wind of. Something worth enough money to kill him for and throw suspicion on the Trelwins.”  
  
“What?!” Rory burst out. “We never!”  
  
“Deran!” Emma thundered up to the door. She leaned in, her face devastated. “It’s Amanda!”  
  
Sondherson’s face went chalk white at the mention of his little sister. He pointed.  
  
“Shoot them!”  
  
He collapsed.  
  
Two shots rang out. The Doctor shoved Amy and Rory to the floor. The bullets buried themselves in the wooden walls behind where they’d stood.  
  
Four more men collapsed.  
  
One young boy, the youngest of the guards, gave the downed guards a terrified look and threw his gun away.  
  
“Good man,” the Doctor said.  
  
—————  
  
The Doctor looked around at the fallen men. Rory was already organizing the survivors to give first aid. One guard was phoning for medical help.  
  
“Right,” the Doctor said. “If you want them to live, take me to your fabricator,” he told the shaken boy.  
  
“But...”  
  
“Do you _want_ them to die?” the Doctor demanded.  
  
“No!” the boy said.  
  
“I’ll take you, Doctor,” Emma said from the door. “I’ve got access.”  
  
—————  
  
The fabricator looked to Amy like some sort of hopper you’d store dried beans in. Except that one side was a bewildering array of complex controls, keyboards, and a three dimensional holographic screen.  
  
The Doctor cracked his knuckles and started programming. Complex circuitry appeared in the hologram and was layered over by more circuitry, layers of insulation, silver coating, and input jacks were all encased in a handsized covering that looked like a squashed peanut shell.  
  
Two long, floppy wires for antenna ended in earbuds. The whole thing looked like an ant after being run over by a tire.  
  
Amy pulled the fabricated device out of the hopper. She looked it over. It was as thin as a wafer.  
  
“The solution is an ugly ipod?” she asked.  
  
The Doctor scowled at her and took it away. He smiled reminiscently a the ugly device. “I made one of these for a friend of mine once.”  
  
Amy snorted. “What for?”  
  
The Doctor gave her a serious look. “Sometimes it’s not what’s inside your head that’s the problem. It’s what’s outside. Come on, lets go see if this works.”  
  
—————  
  
They made their way up the interior corridors of the tree, following Emma. Amy gulped back a feeling of claustrophobia. The wooden tunnels were cramped, the heartwood walls felt like they were pressing in on her after all the time outside. She found herself using both hands to hold the walls away as much as to make her way up the sloping incline.  
  
They emerged into the brightly lit, higgledy-piggledy cavern of the visitors hall. The hall looked different from this angle. The big double doors were barred shut. And the open curtains of the lower bunk alcoves each held a recumbent, unresponsive patient. Each of the men and women had a triangular life support module on the center of their chest, and a group of concerned relatives and friends milled around.  
  
Medical crew had set up intravenous tubes to feed the oldest of the victims, ones who were in danger of dehydrating or starving through lack of nourishment. The air smelled of wood varnish and antiseptic.  
  
Cindy came up, looking hollow-eyed, and hugged her grandma around the hips, burying her face in her grandmother’s comforting stomach.  
  
Jake tended the bar, solemnly doling out drinks and keeping a pile of sandwiches stocked. Gone was the air of comfortable, jovial, welcome. It was now as silent as a tomb.  
  
“Where’s Aaron?” the Doctor asked, running a reassuring hand over Cindy’s curls.  
  
Emma picked up her granddaughter and nodded. “Over here.”  
  
They wove their way through the distraught relatives. Aaron’s bunk was the lowest center alcove, just catty corner below Cindy’s. The Doctor sat on the edge and checked the life support monitor on his chest. The local physician rushed up. “What are you doing? No one is allowed in here unless they’ve volunteered for quarantine duty,” he said.  
  
He got a good look at the Doctor. “ _You!_ What are you doing here?” he glared, then turned as if looking for security.  
  
Emma laid a hand on his arm. “He says he can help, Paul.”  
  
The young doctor looked at her, then looked back down at the Doctor, who was sitting quietly, patiently, being extremely non-aggressive. “How?” he finally asked, running his hands through his hair and gripping with aggravation, ”We haven’t even been able to identify what it is, much less how it’s being transmitted!”  
  
The Doctor held up his ugly ipod. “If my guess is right. This should snap him out of it,” he said gently.  
  
The physician looked at it, then took it and turned it over in his hands. He looked helplessly at Emma.  
  
She shrugged, bouncing Cindy’s head where it rested on her shoulder. “You’ve tried everything else, Paul. It certainly can’t make anything worse.”  
  
The young physician handed the device back to the Doctor. “I can’t condone anything that will introduce anything harmful to my patient. Their immune system is as shut down as everything else, even normal bacteria could....”  
  
The Doctor held up a hand. “No drugs, no chemicals, no intrusive rays or radiation. The absolute worst thing it can do, is do nothing,” the Doctor assured him. Amy heard that deep note in his voice, however. The worst thing it could do, in his estimation, _was_ nothing.  
  
Paul took a deep breath and nodded. The Doctor started to reach forward. Amy spoke up. “Shouldn’t we wait for Jute?”  
  
The Doctor looked up at her. She shrugged. “I don’t see any relatives here for him,” she waved at Aaron, lying so pale on the cot, his kindly ascetic face as motionless as wax. “Shouldn’t he have someone here when he wakes up?”  
  
The Doctor gave her a brilliant smile. “Thank you for that vote of confidence, Amy.” He looked at Emma and the doctor. “Has he got any relatives here?” he looked around at the other people who were milling around, waiting, and tending to the other patients. Some had started to gather, wondering what was going on.  
  
Jake shoved forward from the back of the crowd. “If you’ve got some way to cure him, do it now. We’re all here for him. Jute would only thank you for healing him quickly.” The others muttered and nodded.  
  
The Doctor looked around at the audience and licked his lips. “Right.” Only Amy realized how nervous he was. He was brilliant, but that didn’t always make him right. And if he’d misunderstood what the Trelwins told him...  
  
The Doctor leaned forward in the alcove and brushed the old inventor’s silvery white hair away from his ears. He gently inserted the earbuds, hearing the sigh of anticipation from the crowd behind him. He switched the device on.  
  
Nothing happened.  
  
The crowd behind him breathed out in disappointment. The Doctor jittered one knee, nibbling on his lower lip.  
  
Aaron blinked. The Doctor perked up. Paul leaned in.  
  
The old man stretched his face and yawned, blinking his eyes open. He stared up at all the familiar concerned faces around him. He blinked some more, his eyes crusty, and focused on the one unfamiliar face.  
  
“Who are you?”  
  
The Doctor grinned like a maniac and shook the man’s limp hand energetically. “I’m someone who’s very glad to meet you!”  
  
The Doctor held up a halting hand as Paul tried to nudge him aside to examine his patient. “What is the last thing you can remember thinking, Aaron?”  
  
The white haired inventor looked up at him with a quizzical expression, his eyes darting around at the unfamiliar alcove and all the beaming faces around him, obviously wondering what was going on. He looked back at the Doctor, the Doctor raised inquiring eyebrows at him and gave him an encouraging smile.  
  
“I was thinking that a practicable artistic sense is proof of higher cognitive functions. Why?”  
  
The Doctor studied him as if he was looking for a relapse. “And that was important, why?” the Doctor encouraged. The elderly genius lit up and started spouting off a monologue about cognition and higher brain functions and social behavior and psychobabble and latin words that rivaled anything the Doctor ever came out with. His eyes sparkled, his face was animated with his discovery, and he waved his hands to illustrate his points, seemingly surprised to find an intravenous IV inserted in one of them. He started picking distractedly at the tape around the tube, still talking, the Doctor humming and inserting questions here and there urging him on.  
  
Amy found herself grinning so hard her face hurt, tears standing in her eyes, she was biting her knuckles. It was like watching the Doctor talking to an older version of himself. The old man was most definitely alive, vitally so, despite his rather dehydrated, raisiny appearance.  
  
Paul stopped trying to interrupt. There was a general sigh and some sniffles and muffled tears from the crowd. Obviously the old man was fine.  
  
Eventually the Doctor wound down his discussion with Aaron, having filled in the old inventor with what had happened, and encouraging him to let Paul examine him. He stood up and made way for the local doctor. The physician started to take off the Doctor’s ipod device but Aaron stopped him.  
  
“No, leave it on. I understand the principle now. That Doctor is quite a clever young man...” The Doctor grinned, overhearing that and turned to Emma. The locals had been hounding her with requests for their relatives to be next. At least until Sondherson and his group of guards had been trundled in, then every hand had been needed to prepare and transfer the new patients.  
  
"Doctor, what's causing all this?" Emma asked quietly.  
  
He looked at her, then looked at the influx. “I'm not sure yet," he said. "But, I think you should start mass producing those units as quickly as possible.”  
  



	18. Chapter 18

Rory slipped into the hall with the unconscious Sondherson and his guards, reminding the men at the door that he was a nurse. He looked around quickly and located Amy and the Doctor. And was relieved to see that Aaron was awake. Then he turned his attention to more important matters.

Five men, brought down instantly with no more warning than a sneeze. The men were transferred through the door like so many parcels, red emergency slings transferred from hand to hand, maintaining the quarantine. He immediately started helping the local doctor with triage on the influx, testing each man and getting them hooked up to life support.

On Paul's order, they didn't bother to move the men to alcoves. For now Sondherson and his guards were laid out on the benches. Handling an unresponsive body was heavy and difficult work at the best of times. With any luck, the new patients wouldn't need to be maneuvered into the upper level bunks.

Rory could see the lower level alcoves were already filled. Silas and Jonas were there. Erik and Janet must have been turned away from the door earlier, since he didn't see them here.

Emma was off fabricating more of the Doctor's devices. Rory took hope from the fact that Aaron was awake. The Doctor must have found a cure.

He hoped so, because he never wanted to work another coma ward again.

—————

Emma emerged from the back tunnel carrying a box load of the devices. Paul rushed up to take them, as anxious as the relatives to revive his patients.

The Doctor bounded up. He placed a restraining hand on the man's arm. "Give me a few minutes, Dr. Harris," he said. "It's important. Are Silas and Jonas still unconscious?"

"Yes."

"Good - give me that." He took two headsets from the box and went to where Silas and Jonas had been placed in adjacent bunks. They were lying head to toe in separate wooden alcoves.

"This won't work. Here," he said, beckoning Rory who was helping untangle a nearby patient's IV's. He stuffed the ipods in his pocket, leads dangling. "Help me move Silas over here, Rory, where they can see each other." He dragged over a wooden bench, screeching it across the floor.

"What are you doing, Doctor?" Emma asked as she and Rory hoisted Silas onto the bench in front of Jonases alcove.

The Doctor tossed one headset to Rory and attached the other one to Jonas. "Don't turn them on yet," he cautioned Rory. He turned to Emma. "I need some information, this seems the quickest way to get it."

He stood between the two men and held up his sonic screwdriver. "Okay, Rory, when I say so, turn it on. As soon as they see each other, turn it off." Rory nodded, setting himself alertly.

"One, two, three..." They both switched on the headsets. The two men stirred and opened their eyes. They looked around, saw each other, and lunged.

"Turn it off!" the Doctor yelled, just as Silas knocked Rory aside. Rory still had hold of the ipod and yanked it out of Silas' ears.

Both men collapsed. Silas hit the floor with a meaty thunk. The Doctor's screwdriver whirred.

He studied the readings.

"I hope there was a good reason for that," Emma said repressively as she helped Rory lift Silas back onto his bench. The Doctor pulled his foot out from under the hunter's head.

"Ouch. Yes, there was.” He closed the screwdriver tines. “I need to talk to Deran."

—————

"You better do this one," the Doctor said, handing Emma a headset and nodding down at Sondherson. "I'll just stand over here." He pointed behind him, well out of Sondherson's reach.

Emma ignored him. She brushed aside the administrator’s white-winged, red hair and pressed the earbuds in his ears. She flipped on the switch and Deran's eyes opened. He looked around at the visitor's hall. "What happened?" He sat up abruptly. "Where's the Doctor!"

One of the earbuds fell out, his eyes rolled up and he fell over backward with a thump.

"Uhm, yes," the Doctor said from behind him. "I think those need to be seated more firmly."

Emma gave him a repressive look. She put the earbuds back in Sondherson's ears and held his shoulders down as he woke up. He struggled. He looked up. "Emma, what..?"

"You need to calm down, Deran. Everything's fine. Amanda's fine. Everyone is starting to wake up. Look." She nodded to where Paul and Amy were busy handing out ipods, there was a background sighing and babble of conversation as the victims woke up. "The Doctor found a cure."

"Well, I wouldn't call it a cure exactly..." the Doctor's voice drifted over her shoulder.

Sondherson frowned. "But he _caused_ it!"

The Doctor's face appeared over Emma's shoulder. He shook his head, hair flopping. "No, I didn't. This is something that has been affecting the Trelwin for millennia, now, for some reason, it's started affecting humans. I had nothing to do with it."

Sondherson stared at him, then turned his eyes back to Emma. "Cure?"

"Those earphones you're wearing," Emma said.

"Amanda?" his voice broke.

Emma nodded to the side, he turned his head to see a young, red haired woman sitting up in a bunk across the room. He breathed out a sigh of relief.

"You can let me up now."

—————

While Emma and Paul were bringing Sondherson up to speed, and everyone else was busy with the recovering victims, the Doctor filched a wide beam dermal regenerator from the medical supplies and showed Amy how to use it to heal her still tender skin.

When she climbed back down from her former bunk, she saw the big double doors were open and sunlight was streaming in. The recovered patients and their families were leaving by ones and twos, being swept away by joyful groups of relatives outside.

Dr. Harris and his medical staff were busy gathering up equipment and clearing away the evidence of the quarantine. The Doctor, Sondherson, and Emma were watching the exodus. The hall was slowly returning to normal. Jake was cleaning mugs with a smile on his face.

"Sorry to bring it up, Deran," Amy said as she stalked up and tossed Paul's regenerator back in his medical kit, "but I was wondering if you had another Visitor's jacket I could borrow. This shirt doesn't have a chute," Amy said, plucking at the fabric. "In fact," she looked down at her safari kit, "This isn't even my shirt. Eula loaned it to me, and the trousers belong to Janet." She bit her lip and looked at the Doctor. She looked back at Deran. "Is there any place I can get some clothes of my own? All our stuff is still in the Tardis."

"I can get you a jacket, and there's clothing shops over in B Tree," Sondherson replied.

"We don't exactly have any money," Amy said. "And since we're not your biologists..."

Deran frowned at them in remembrance.

Emma broke in, "They just saved your life, Deran, and everyone else's. I think we can manage to continue subsidizing them for a while. Besides," she said, "Erik said they helped harvest the cocoons and fruit on the safari, so they are due a share of that." She looked Amy up and down.

"You come with me, I think my daughter had some clothes that will fit you." She looked at the Doctor. "And I hate to say it, Doctor, but you could do with a wash and a change yourself. Come along, we'll get you cleaned up. Deran, you have work to do." She waved them on behind her, and Amy and the Doctor looked at each other, shrugged, and followed. Rory stayed behind, helping to tend the patients who were still recovering.

Emma led them up through the spiral corridors to her flat, which was a nice, chintzy, homey abode similar to any you would find for an iron-haired matron anywhere in the universe. Carved wooden walls aside.

Pictures of family hung on the walls and a group holograph stood in pride of place on a side table, looking like a sculpture made of light. Amy could see a younger version of Erik, a baby that must be Cindy, and a blond smiling young woman, slender, but as tall as her brother, that must be the unnamed daughter. Emma stood in pride of place in the middle, surrounded by an extended brood of cousins and relatives of all ages and heights.

"You have a lovely family," the Doctor said, smiling at it. They all looked robustly healthy and happy.

Emma smiled at the compliment and directed him off to the shower room, telling him to leave his clothes outside the door. He skipped off happily, pulling loose his grimy and droopy bowtie.

"You do realize there won't be any hot water left after he's through," Amy said.

Emma laughed. "We've got solar converters, he can use as much as he wants." She leaned back and peered around the corner after him. "I bet he sings in the shower too," she said, conspiratorially.

Amy grinned. "Loudly."

—————

Rory arrived hesitantly just as the Doctor was shrugging back into his downy clean jacket and re-attaching his harness clips. Amy waved at him from the sunny little breakfast nook that looked out over a sheer drop outside. She was dressed in sturdy camoflage pants, tucked into the top of her boots, and a feminine cut hunter's jacket that had apparently been a gift from Erik to his sister. She was chewing on a piece of toast slathered with jam.

Emma got up, finished pouring her juice and waved Rory inside. She soon had him bundled into the bathroom, explained all the amenities and took the dirty clothes he bashfully passed through the door, promising to have them back nice and clean once he was done.

—————

When Rory emerged from the bathing room it was to find the Doctor leaning precariously far out of Emma's breakfast window, one leg waving, holding up his sonic screwdriver like he was taking a reading.

Rory's heart jumped in his chest, certain the gangly Time Lord was going to fall to his death. Before he could, he leaned back into the room and extended his arm as far as he could inside and took another reading. Although what six feet of distance was going to tell him, Rory had no idea.

A scratching at the door heralded the arrival of Steve, the young man who'd first greeted them at the tree. "Sorry to interrupt, Emma. Doctor, the Administrator wants to see you in his office," he said.

The Doctor looked up from his sonic. "Good, I want to see him. Come along, Ponds."

—————

Sondherson was sitting at his desk in his empty office. He looked up when they entered and waved Steve away. Emma closed the door behind them.

“I’ve got everything locked down for the moment,” Sondherson explained, as they took positions around the room. “But I need to know what’s going on.

"We've already been getting reports of unexplained deaths in other groves," he said.

Rory jerked upright in his chair. “Tell them they aren’t dead!” he exclaimed.

Sondherson looked at him. “I already have. But, unfortunately, not before some funerals.”

The Doctor asked quietly, “What are your funeral practices?”

Sondherson’s jaw went rigid. “Cremation.”

“Oh my god,” Amy slapped a hand over her mouth.

"People are starting to panic,” Sondherson said. “They don't know what's going on or what is causing it. In at least one grove, they've started hunting Trelwins because they think they're responsible, that the Trelwins have been attacking people." He held up a hand, "I've already sent messages out that the Trelwin aren't causing this. I've told them that it's something that affects Trelwins too and that they can detect it, which is why they're reacting this way. At least, that's what Erik reported to me. But I don't know if I'll be believed. Not if I can't tell them what's actually causing this.

People are scared."

"And so they should be," the Doctor said, pacing. "We've got to hold off a panic until we can deal with this. Distributing the headsets will be a start. Draw up a set of guidelines so people know what to look for and have a feeling they have some control."

"We can't fabricate headsets for everyone, Doctor," Sondherson said. "We don't have enough raw material packs."

"Then just fabricate the components you _can't_ make yourselves," Rory said.

Sondherson looked at him. "I considered that, but I've looked over his schematics and there are several components that we can _only_ get by fabrication. And most of the other groves don't have fabricators. We only do because of our agreement with Neale."

The Doctor held a hand up. "You don't need to give headsets to everyone on the planet. Obviously this doesn't affect everyone, or all the Trelwin would be extinct."

"Even so, Doctor, we can't provide enough components to cover even those we do know will be affected. Statistically our supply of packs will run out soon. We've already been using them to fabricate life support units. And we can't even predict who it will hit next!"

"I had a thought about that," the Doctor turned to pin Sondherson with a fascinated stare. "What does your sister do?"

Sondherson glared at him. "What has that got to do with anything?"

The Doctor just stared at him, eyebrows raised.

Sondherson glowered. "She's a painter," he finally admitted, grudgingly.

Rory looked around at the wood textured walls. "You mean, like varnish?" he asked. Sondherson gave him a withering glare. Rory shrugged and waved. "Sorry, I just haven't seen much paint on your walls."

Emma grinned, she and Amy were leaning on either side of the door, like bookends. "It's because she doesn't paint walls, except for murals. Amanda's one of the premier artists of Yblis. Not that you'd ever get her older brother to admit it." Emma chuckled.

Deran grumbled. "You didn't have to put up with all her early sketches everywhere."

The Doctor smiled. "Then that's who you need to put on your watch list. Artists, painters, inventors like Aaron."

Sondherson rubbed a hand wearily over his face, "I hate to admit it, Doctor, but I'm no artist, neither is Jonas or Silas, or several of the other victims."

"Ah, yes. The other thing to watch out for is violence, especially premeditated violence," the Doctor said.

Sondherson winced guiltily. "I'm sorry about that Doctor. At the time..."

"Don't worry," the Doctor said, waving it off. "I get that all the time."

"Yeah," Rory said. "People are always wanting to kill him."

" _Thank_ you, Rory." The Doctor turned back to Sondherson. "What you need to do is to tell people to stay calm, to stay focused on their work, and if they have any fiery grudges, to set them aside until we get this cleared up."

Sondherson raised his red eyebrows at the Doctor. "You think it will be that easy?"

The Doctor shrugged. "No. But it's a place to start."

—————

"That still leaves us with all the people who have already been affected." Sondherson tapped at his own ipod, the wires dangling from his ears. "We can't supply units to all the groves."

"You don't need to," the Doctor said. "Only a few people will need to wear them constantly, like Aaron, and possibly your sister. In fact, you can probably take yours off now and be completely fine," the Doctor said. He stopped his pacing and leaned on Sondherson's desk, watching him expectantly.

Sondherson hesitated, then reached up to his earbuds. His eyes darted to everyone else in the room. Amy and Rory nodded, Rory somewhat hesitantly. Emma shrugged.

Dubiously, he took the earbuds out and laid them carefully on his desk. He held himself straight, and still. But nothing happened. He didn't collapse, didn't pass out, there seemed to be nothing wrong with him. He let out a sigh of relief, and draped the leads back around his neck, just in case.

The Doctor grinned approvingly at him, as if at a pupil. "Thought so." He stood up and stuffed his hands in his pockets in satisfaction.

Amy frowned. "Explain."

The Doctor swiveled on his heels to look at her. "We only need to use the units as revival tools. As soon as the subject is revived we distract him from what he was thinking when he collapsed. After that, he should be fine."

His hands came up, gesturing. "Whatever this thing is, it only reacts to certain wavelengths of energy," he said in lecture mode. "Thoughts are energy. Different types of thoughts give out different wavelengths. Whatever this thing is, it reacts to that."

"It reacts to thoughts?" Emma frowned. "Some sort of telepathic plague?" she asked dubiously.

"So how do we stop a whole planet from thinking?" Rory said.

Sondherson protested. "That’s impossible. I can't tell people not to _think_!"

"So what do we do?" Amy asked.

"We take a lesson from the Trelwins," the Doctor said. He stuffed his hands in his pockets again.

"According to Zeke; ' _The monster has existed since the beginning. It preys on passion, and anger, and vengeance._ '"

They could hear the sing-song cadence of legend in his voice.

" _Beware passion. It will draw the eye of god._

_Subdue anger. It will draw the mind of god._

_Deny vengeance. It will draw the finger of god._

_The monster waits. It watches, it hears. Do not draw its attention._ '"


	19. Chapter 19

“All right,” Sondherson said. “So how do we fight this thing?”

“We find it,” the Doctor said.

He looked around the room. “We need maps.”

—————

The Doctor held down a straight edge on the map and drew a line, straight southeast from their position.

“Somewhere along that line,” he said, studying the map. “From the information in Janet’s readings, and what I was able to pick up with the sonic screwdriver, the energy is a standing wave that’s always been here, it’s not apparently done anything so you didn’t pay it any attention.

But when it reacts, it leaves a directional bearing, somewhere along that line.”

“What’s this?” Rory asked, leaning over the desk. The map was a topographical satellite map of the jungle, crisscrossed with various lines indicating communications sectors and flight routes, the groves picked out in red, there were more of them than Rory expected.

He was pointing at a blue circled area that the lines all avoided.

“No Fly Zone,” Sondherson answered.

The Doctor raised his eyebrows.

Sondherson explained. “No shuttles are allowed to fly there. They can’t, the instruments go crazy. Some sort of electromagnetic interference.”

The Doctor grinned delightedly. “Then that’s where we need to go,” he stabbed a finger down on the circle.

“We can’t,” Sondherson said, looking uncomfortable.

“Why not?”

He looked at the Doctor, looked away, took a deep breath.

“It’s haunted.”

—————

The Doctor’s eyebrows shot up. “You don’t strike me as a man who believes in ghosts.”

Sondherson frowned at him. “I’m not. But I know my history. We’ve had research teams going in there to investigate the cause of the electromagnetic interference, ever since it was first discovered. Then rescue teams sent in to rescue them when they didn’t return. Then rescue teams going in after _them_.

“Eventually we lost so many people that it was declared a prohibited area. They even listed the reason as “haunted” in the official records.

“Because the only two people who ever made it out of there, were mad.”

—————

“It fits all the criteria,” the Doctor said, he stood and expounded to the crowd. They’d all gathered back in the visitor’s hall, Sondherson, Emma, Dr. Harris, the whole safari group, everyone who had any official contact with the phenomena, and the Trelwins.

“What criteria?” Erik asked, crossing his arms.

“It’s on the right bearing, it’s a ‘forbidden place’,” the Doctor made quotation marks with his fingers, “It causes electromagnetic disruptions when we’re looking for the source of an electromagnetic field, and it’s haunted.

“It practically _screams_ ‘Here be monsters,’ he tapped the circle on the map they’d laid out across two shoved-together tables.

“Well, I guess that means we’ll need the heavy ordinance,” Erik said.

—————

The safari members were arrayed around the room, on benches or sitting on the edges of the alcoves. Jute and Nelda were making a big fuss over Aaron. Janet was standing by Dr. Harris at the bar, nursing an ale.

“Won’t the phenomenon get worse the closer we are to its source?” she mentioned.

“We’ll take the Trelwin to serve as early warning detectors,” the Doctor said.

“So how do they know when it’s going to happen?” Sondherson asked.

The Doctor looked over at Zeke who was sitting on a table by the cook, Pickles, they were sharing a ripper fruit. “They see the finger of god,” the Doctor said.

“How?” Rory asked, beside him, staring at the elder Trelwin.

“I’m assuming it’s a survival trait, developed over the eons,” the Doctor said, hitching a hip on the table by the map, everyone’s eyes on him. “They can actually see the _potential_ of the energy. When a person’s thoughts are on the right,” he interrupted himself, “or wrong, depending on your viewpoint,” he grinned, “frequency, it creates a bridge - a potential that they can see, that’s what they call the finger of god, the energy that dampens people.” He pushed a finger down on top of Rory’s head. Rory jerked back and shivered. “Don’t do that.”

The Doctor turned to Sondherson. “That’s why Zeke attacked Aaron. He could see the potential gathering. He was trying to distract him, or knock him out, to cut off the though any way he could, before it could form the bridge. But he was too late.”

Dr. Harris rubbed his forehead. “Then why strike him afterwards? Why bite him?” he asked, trying to understand.

The Doctor shrugged. “Elementary life support. They must have discovered that striking a downed Trelwin on the chest could sometimes revive them.”

“And the bite?” Sondherson asked.

“Same thing,” the Doctor said. “Adrenaline response.” He waved to Dr. Harris. “Adrenaline is often used to revive a patient.”

Dr. Harris nodded. “Usually by injection, though. A bite would only work if the patient was still responsive enough to produce his own.”

The Doctor shrugged. “If they managed to stop the bridge by knocking someone out, biting them would probably revive them.” The Doctor looked up, sad eyed. “When trying to revive a loved one, anything that works...”

Sondherson nodded. “Okay, so he was trying to help. Can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same if I’d known about this ‘monster’ then.”

“So the Trelwin go with us as native guides and lookouts,” Janet said.

The Doctor nodded, stood, and leaned over the map. “We don’t know what bit of local knowledge might be vital until we get there. And, I think, they want to be there.” He looked up at Sondherson. “The Trelwins have suffered under this thing for far longer than you have.”

Sondherson nodded. So did Erik. There was a general mumbling around the room, everyone had _some_ relative who’d been affected.

“So,” Erik said, leaning over the map, studying it. “It will take us four days to reach the no fly zone. What then?”

—————

One side of the huge double doors yanked open. Axel stuck his head in.

“Dr. Harris!” he called urgently. “We’ve got another two down! One of them’s a Trelwin.”

Harris grabbed his satchel, then looked up in surprise, he was already running for the door. “What?”

Axel held the door open for him, he looked back at all the curious faces inside, including Sondherson’s. “Alexis got hit by this thing while she was milking the Sunsails, one of the Trelwin slapped her and they both went over. Fortunately they got snagged in a branch, I think ‘Lexi’s leg is broken, and the Trelwin is out too.”

He turned back to the doctor. “I’ve got men hauling them up.”

Harris turned to the Doctor, his eyes flickering between him and Aaron. “The Trelwin?” he asked, obviously out of his depth.

Aaron shifted himself higher in his bunk. “The devices should work on them too,” he said urgently. “As long as it’s still alive. Their cardiovascular system is similar to a humans.” He signed something urgently to Nelda. She straightened up abruptly, signed back, and swung up the wall and out the transom window using the pegs beside the bunks.

Harris breathed out a sigh of relief, “Thanks.” He and Axel left, the door slamming behind them.

The Doctor looked around at all the silent, shocked faces. He caught Rory’s eye and Rory nodded back, understanding the implications. He and Amy detached themselves from his side and insinuated themselves into the other sides of the group, where they could help him keep a lid on things.

“This isn’t over,” the Doctor said quietly. “The ipods are only a stopgap measure. And humans seeing Trelwins attack humans aren’t going to believe there isn’t a connection. Not against the ‘proof’ of their own eyes.”

He looked around the group with very old eyes, they all watched him, unblinking, a little bit lost.

“Neither humans nor Trelwins are safe until we find the source and stop it. We need hunters,” he nodded at Erik. “We need ipods and life support units.” He nodded at Emma. “We need transport to the No Fly Zone.

“And we need to move now.”

—————

“To get there you’ll have to take one of the shuttles,” Sondherson said, all business, leaning over the map. “That’s several hundred kilometers from here. You’ll have to set out from the mines,” he tapped a black circle on the map. “That’s the closest settlement.”

“You’ve got mines?” Rory asked.

“Of course.” Sondherson looked up. “We have to get our ore from somewhere.”

“But I thought living on the ground was too dangerous?”

“It is. But the mines are _under_ ground, naturally fortified. They mine and do the metalwork there and we ferry in supplies and gather the metal parts. And do personnel transfers as needed.”

Sondherson scratched the back of his neck. “We can probably scrounge up half a load of produce. I’ll get Axel on it. And I’ll see who’s due out for rotation. We can send along as many life support units and the Doctor’s earpod units as we can spare.” He looked around at the safari group. “Each of you will need to carry a life support unit and ipod as well, as well as your regular supplies and weapons.”

Erik nodded.

Aaron spoke up from his bunk where he was still too weak to go home yet. He held up the stack of flimsies he’d talked Emma into getting for him. “I’ve studied these schematics, if all we need to do is streamline them for local materials, I think I can do that. Seaharbor Grove has that new deposit of crystals they found, they might work to provide the oscillation needed to tune the frequency. There are other things we can try. We’ll figure something out.”

“Thank you, Aaron.” Sondherson said. “I’ll get you anything you need.” The old inventor nodded.

—————

They were in the air before dawn. Erik, Janet, Bill, Jute, Pickles and Eula had agreed to come with them to form a jungle party. The rest of the safari team stayed behind to help protect the grove.

They were taking half a load of provisions and supplies as well as a couple of replacement workers to the mines, since the Yblins didn’t believe in wasting fuel even for an emergency.

Amy giggled in her seat.

“What?” Rory said.

She shook her head. Sondherson had explained that there was a tradeoff between how big a shuttle they could fit in the shelter, and how big a load it could haul.

The result was a medium sized cargo shuttle - but with added collapsable cargo pods that could be towed along behind.

“I just feel like we’re in a Winnebago - hauling a camper van,” Amy snickered.

—————

It was a six hour flight to the mines.

After about two hours the Doctor had exhausted all the curiosities of the atmospheric shuttle and sat in his chair for ten minutes. Kicking his feet.

“Well, this is boring,” he said.

Amy and Rory grinned at each other. It was a miracle he’d actually managed to sit still for 10 minutes.

Zeke had managed to stay in his chair longer. But the Trelwin was now pressed up against the windows with Chitchi and Nelda. The Trelwins jumped from side to side of the craft comparing views. They weren’t flying very high. But it was higher than the Trelwins had ever been before, their world spread out below them.

“Perhaps we could play a game of cards?” Janet suggested, seeing imminent disaster looming. Apparently she’d learned how to deal with the Doctor after being paired with him on safari.

“Excellent!” the Doctor said. “I’m excellent at Go Fish!”

The rest of the safari crew were in the next compartment, cleaning equipment or napping as suited their temperaments.

Erik brought in a carafe of lemonade from the tiny canteen behind the pilot’s cabin. He settled in to join the game and pass the time.

Zeke, seeing the humans congregating in a circle, climbed over the chairs to watch them. He leaned over the Doctor’s shoulder from his perch on the back of a chair and poked a long suedy finger at one of the Doctor’s cards, the faint smell of cherries, butterscotch and leafmold wafted over them.

The Doctor spread out his cards and pointed to each one, then pointed around at the group.

Nelda was still glued to the windows at the front of the cabin. More smells wafted over them as Janet finished dealing the cards.

They all stopped to watch the Doctor apparently explaining the game to Zeke. He didn’t say anything, but he leaned over and plucked a card out of Rory’s hand.

“Hey!”

He showed it to the Trelwin, running a finger over the multiplied pattern on its surface. The smell of raindrops wafting off him.

The Trelwin took the card, there was a brief sharp scent of black licorice, then the old Trelwin handed the card back to Rory, extending his long arm over the Doctor’s shoulder, reaching easily across the table.

The Trelwin stared down at the Doctor, there was another blast of licorice, and the Doctor ducked his head at the scolding.

“You can talk to them?” Janet asked. “I mean, really talk to them, not just sign language?”

—————

The Doctor looked up. “Yes. Their language is made up mostly of smells and body language. I’m usually better at languages, this is taking a while.”

“You’re speaking to him with smells?” Amy asked, confused.

“Yes, it’s a bit like ventriloquism of the nose. I’m not really designed for scent speech, don’t have the glands. By their standards I’m probably whispering.”

Zeke tapped a heavy finger on his shoulder, there was the scent of violets, which Rory somehow took as a question. The Doctor looked up at the Trelwin and smelled of bark and leaves. The Trelwin sat back to watch, apparently satisfied.

Erik stared at him. “Is there anything you can’t do?” he asked, disgruntled.

The Doctor grinned at him. “I can’t make a decent meringue.”

—————

“We’re coming up on the mines,” the pilot’s voice came over the intercom. “Everybody get strapped in.”

Amy and Rory jumped toward the windows. There had been nothing but endless, unbroken jungle to see for hours, so they’d lost interest. Rory had even said he understood now why they hadn’t been able to use the shuttle before. With all the trees, there was no place to land.

But now they crawled over the seats like a couple of kids, craning their necks to get a look. The Doctor leaned in behind them, looking over their shoulders.

Amy pressed her cheek to the window.

Rory stared, then turned and looked at Janet, where she and Erik were taking down the table and folding it away. “ _That’s_ your mine?” he asked.

Janet grinned at him, obviously enjoying his response.

Amy pressed her cheek harder to the glass, eyes wide. “Oh my god!”


	20. Chapter 20

It was a stump.

A gigantic stump, half a mile wide. It rose up out of the jungle like a fortress, towering 300 feet above the forest trees. The top looked like it had been leveled off with a laser.

Amy stared at Rory, and he stared back, before they both reverted their gaze to the view outside.

As they approached they could see the black scorchmarks of the ancient fire that must have felled it. There was no sign of the rest of the tree.

Rory could hear his own breath echoing on the window pane, he could hear the others shuffling around behind him. Amy warm at his side.

As they flew in over the mine, preparing to land, they could see right down into the center of the stump, he felt himself leaning forward to see, pressing more of his face against the glass. It was hollow. The heartwood eaten away by age and decay, leaving a chimney within the protective ring of the stump.

They could see steps and huge bay windows extruding out of the uneven inner walls, taking advantage of the sunlight.

As they pivoted in to land, Rory blinked. Giant cranes and moving equipment loaded and unloaded supplies and ore onto waiting shuttles and transports. Huge metal bins held raw ore and crates and barrels lined the ring shaped landing field.

They landed with a light thump. The surface of the stump was obviously intended as a staging area. Unlike the grove platforms, this one had railings around the edges. As they set down with a gentle bump, he could see the workers on the far side of the rim, so far away they looked like ants.

The Doctor was the first to reach the exit hatch.

—————

The Doctor stumbled out onto the windswept landing field and raced to the nearest railing. He leaned over, peering down into the depths and grinned hugely. “Brilliant!”

Amy and Rory, followed by the rest of the safari group stepped out, looking around. A solid but portly man with a hardhat and a worried expression strode up to them. Rory stared down, gripping with his toes, trying to get his head around the idea that he was standing on tree rings.

Nelda and Zeke ambled out of the shuttle hatch, Chitchi swung out with one hand on the upper doorframe, and landed with a thump. All three Trelwins looked around avidly.

The mine manager nodded at them. “We don’t have any Trelwin here,” he waved at the obvious lack of branches, and the abundance of equipment. “You’ll want to keep an eye on them, there’s a lot of ways they could get hurt."

Bill nodded and went to stand near them, guarding. Amy joined her. Metallic clanks and thumps, and the yells of loading crews came to them, all overlaid with the sighing of the wind.

The manager turned and shook Erik’s hand, nodding to the others.

“I hear you’ve got some kind of cure?” the burly mine manager asked eagerly.

“Not a cure,” Erik said. “A treatment. Ipods - Interference Pods.” Amy and Rory grinned at each other when they heard that. Janet grabbed a box of the pods from where the rest of the group were unloading their supplies. She brought them over to the manager. “Put these on your affected patients and flip the switch,” Erik said, demonstrating. “It interferes with the signal that’s shut them down. But it’s not a cure.

“Did you get Sondherson’s messages?” he asked.

“Yeah, an explanation that it’s not the Trelwins causing it, and some sort of poem about avoiding vengeance and passion. I can tell you, that part about avoiding passion didn’t go over well.”

The Doctor poked his head in as Amy started laughing in the background. He flailed a hand at her to shut up.

“It’s not that kind of passion. Hello. I’m the Doctor.” He shook the man’s hand unexpectedly and burbled on. “We only brought 50 ipods, but we’ve got Aaron working on a way to make more.

“Is this your stump? I must say, it’s impressive.” He looked back over the landing field.

He didn’t notice the mine manager’s disbelieving look at Erik, or Erik’s exasperated shake of the head.

“Is there a tour?” the Doctor said excitedly, suddenly spinning back to them. “I’d love a tour.”

“This is the Doctor and his two assistants,” Erik introduced. “They’re the the offworld biologists who helped us figure out what was going on.” He smoothed over the introductions.

The manager nodded, shaking off his confusion at the odd visitor. "Thank you for these," the mine manager said to Erik, holding up the box.

"We've been lucky here, we've only had four cases. Didn't know what was happening until we got the memo from Sondherson. Fortunately, we are geared up for emergencies, got a big medical unit, overstocked in case of cave-ins. But we'll be relieved to get those people back on their feet.

"It's weird, there's no connection, no predicting this thing. We had two engineers, a miner, and one of the kitchen staff go down. Yet we had a tavern brawl and had only normal injuries. The note said violence is one of the triggers."

"Until we find out what this thing is, there's no way of predicting what it will do," Erik said.

"Well, the faster you can get in there and figure it out, the better, Bayside has had 60 people go down in the last three days."

Everyone gasped. "Fallen?" Rory asked, worriedly.

The manager looked at him. "Only a few, thank god, but the rest are frantic."

"Why so many there?" Amy asked.

"Bayside is our artists community. My nieces live there." He scrubbed a hand over his face. "They were hit hard and fast. And on top of that, the storm brought down one of their major branches. Coveside is lending assistance," He saw the confused look on Amy's face at the names. "Coveside is one of our largest groves, with the biggest population. Seventeen trees. It's on the other side of the bay, but they've had their own problems.

"Landsdown is cranking out life support units as fast as they can, and we've already sent out calls for support units through the wormhole, but they'll take time to arrive."

"With any luck,” Erik said, “by the time they get here we'll have found this thing and stopped it."

"Pray god, you're right," the manager said. "Bayside doesn't have enough equipment, they've got people doing manual shifts of life support, trying to stabilize the victims. We've already sent all the spare life support units we can. I'll be sending these on there, if that's okay," he said, holding up the box of ipods they'd brought along.

"Whatever you need to do with them," Janet said, piling the box of extra life support units on top of it.

"I'll leave you to Darvish,” he nodded and pointed with the box. “He's getting his team ready, he'll be joining you on this safari. We've had another situation come up. We've got a courier waiting to take these on to Bayside. Thanks!" He lifted the box and trotted off.

Darvish, the man the manager had nodded to, was just climbing up the last stairs on the inner rim of the stump. He was a hugely broad shouldered man. Four feet wide, and yet when he stepped foot on the lip, they saw he was only about 4 1/2 feet tall. He looked as if someone had taken Paul Bunyan and squashed him down in a compactor.

Erik apparently knew him and walked forward to shake his hand with pleasure. "Glad you'll be joining us," he said.

"I'm not," Darvish replied. He smiled wryly. While he had the body of a trollish lumberjack, Amy thought, he had the face of a history scholar. Long and lean, with an elegant diction that made him sound like he should be wearing tweed and smoking a pipe in a library somewhere.

"What's this situation?" the Doctor asked. Shaking the man's hand with glee, yet also a serious expression.

"We've got a missing personal courier. We think it may have gone down in the zone."

"You don't know? Don't you keep flight records?" Amy asked.

"Yes. But their home port is Bayside. With all the confusion there these last few days They didn't notice the amended flight plan or the altered arrival date. It was only this morning that someone realized they were overdue. Their flight pattern doesn't take them anywhere near the zone, but with that storm the other day, they may have been shoved off course. There's been no communications, no transponder signal. No emergency screamer. But satellite pictures show what looks like a crash lane in the trees in the zone. We're hoping it's them and that they've survived. We have to check it out."

"Of course," the Doctor said, sticking his hands in his pockets. “Wait,” he took them back out again. “No signal out of the zone? Electromagnetic interference?” He slapped his forehead. "Shielding! I almost _forgot_!

“Janet! Give me one of those!” He ran up to where Janet was unloading their own teams supply of ipods and life support units. The Doctor grabbed one, then looked around, as if he was looking for a table. He turned a complete circle, looking harried, then sat down on the ground, he started sonicing the back off one of the life support pods.

Darvish stared at him. Erik pretended to be very interested in a shuttle across the ring. “I think, Doctor, we can find you a better workspace in one of the workshops below,” the local leader said.

The Doctor looked up interestedly, the broad built miner waved a hand toward the stairs.

—————

The Trelwins leaped forward to swing down the stairs. Bill and Amy rushed to follow, the Doctor, Erik and Darvish trailed behind, talking earnestly.

The Trelwins swung under the stairs, brachiating their way down the huge staircase that spiraled down the interior of the hollow tree. Making occasional side trips to investigate things, crawling along the splintered inner wood surface of the mine.

Unlike the home tree, the stairs here were all wrought iron with handrails and grated steps, clanging as their feet pounded on them, the sound echoing in the vast space.

Sunlight beamed down, with an almost desert intensity, sparking off of a myriad of gallery windows. Amy kept one eye on the Trelwins and craned her head to peer into what looked like restaurants, herbariums, offices, viewing lounges, all of them taking advantage of the natural sunlight in the protected well.

"It's not just a mine," Bill said at her obvious interest. "It's a community." She nodded at all the windows. “They provide entertainment, culture, and lots of natural light and places to go and things to do to make mine living tolerable. Humans aren't meant to live underground, away from the sun."

Bill grinned as Chitchi peered into one of the big bay windows and startled a woman vacuuming inside. Amy saw her mouth open in a screech, and her hand go to her chest. Then the woman laughed, realizing it was a Trelwin, and waved at Chitchi.

Amy turned and shouted up at the Doctor, “How do you sign ‘Stay with me?’” she demanded. The Doctor turned from his discussion with Erik and Darvish and flipped her a sign. She turned and yelled at Nelda, when the white Trelwin turned to look at her, she flipped her the sign.

Nelda crawled over and pulled Chitchi away from the window. The three Trelwins swung over and ambled, dignified, down the metal staircase several yards in front of Amy and Bill.

Amy peered around, still unable to believe her eyes. All the staircases, weaving in and out of the crevices, smaller staircases crisscrossing this larger main one, leading to all different levels. Giant lift cables ran down one side of the space, lifting up cargo containers and supplies.

It was like a home tree, but inside out. She even saw a couple of people slide down a couple of fireman poles. She'd thought they were just supports for the stairs, but it made far more sense than trudging down the whole staircase. She'd have to try one.

But there was less green growing smell. The air here was dryer, more metallic. More old moldy wood. It was sort of a nice smell, in its way, but not the same as a growing tree. The wood walls besides the steps here were dry and splintered. Aged with the patina of many hands.

"What is Landsdown?" Amy asked Bill as they both kept an eye on the Trelwins who were again swinging down the underside of the stairs before them, studying everything with bright eyes.

The well was huge, it was going to take a while to reach the bottom.

"Landsdown is the settlement that grew up around the ship." The big woman said, clanging casually down the stairs. "It's still our technical center. It's on the high plains, to the west, by the ocean. It's where the colony ship crashed. They had intended to land there, but it was rough. But it mostly survived. It's our technical hub, most of the labs and equipment have been preserved and updated over the centuries. It's also our spaceport for those ships that need to land."

"It's on the ground?" Amy asked, surprised.

Bill nodded. "The high plains are one of the few places not covered in forest. Our ancestors thought we'd be safe there."

Amy frowned. "They weren't?"

Bill laughed. "They didn't count on the size of the herbivores on this planet. You've seen the size of our ‘dragons’ here?" she asked, reminding Amy of the huge Komodo dragon they'd seen on safari. She nodded with a shudder. Bill continued, "They're a tiny lizard by comparison." She held her hand up, her thumb and forefinger held four inches apart.

Amy's eyes widened thinking of something the size of a mega-mammoth. "How did they survive?"

Bill shrugged. "They set up forcefields, dug moats, set stingerlines. Even burned off the area right around the ship, hoping that if there was no food they'd stay away. Unfortunately, it kept growing back. Fortunately the herbivores are placid creatures, you just have to stay out of their way. But there's no keeping them off the plains completely. It's the only place on the planet where we can grow grains. Basically we just worry about keeping them away from the settlement, and use harvester droids to harvest whatever of the wheat crops they leave behind. It's been enough for us so far. We cull the herds once a year. And share out the meat." She licked her lips with a grin. "There's nothing like a grainfed herbivore steak!" Her eyes twinkled so lasciviously that Amy laughed.

—————

When they reached the bottom of the stairs and emerged into the mine proper, they found themselves in a vast outdoor “mall.” Tunnels ran off of it in every direction, the dirt walls rose thick with huge twining roots, and glinted with colorful chunks of gemstones that had been exposed by the mining, then polished and left as decoration.

The bottom of the walls were ringed with a variety of shops and storefronts and restaurants cut back under the ledge of the wood, they all had raised shutters that showed they could be closed off from the main space if needed.

But the main space was huge. Easily four football fields across, the center of the treetrunk rose above it like a chimney, allowing in air and light. There were even a couple of small, spindly trees growing around in carefully placed conversation groups with chairs and benches ringing them.

It was a huge “outdoor” space, for the miners, but within the safety of fortified walls, protecting them from the jungle outside.

Amy craned her neck up. The huge vanes of the decayed heartwood stuck out from the jagged walls, their sharp edges even more noticeable from down here, where they were sharply undercut, showing their triangular cross-section.

She squinted at the noonday sun which was streaming down, unimpeded, glinting off of the bay windows that dotted the inside of the shaft.

She looked out across the open area. “What happens when it rains?” she asked.

“I expect it gets muddy,” the Doctor said, walking up beside her, bouncing on his toes, delighted. There was a group of miners playing volleyball in a sandpit on the other side of the commons.

“Doesn’t it flood?” Amy asked.

The Doctor looked at her. “Why should it? It’s basically a fortress courtyard. Just because it has walls doesn’t make it a bathtub. And it’s a mine. I’m sure they have pumps to get rid of excess water. It probably just soaks into the ground, like anywhere else outside. Or they collect it for use, like they do in the tree. Very efficient people these Yblins.”

He grinned. “Nothing like living in a tree to make a person ecology conscious.”

A young man separated himself from the volleyball players, he was of average height, slim, but with well defined muscles and long blond hair. “Bill!” he yelled as he trotted up, grinning.

He hugged the Amazonian woman, completely dwarfed by her, but they were both grinning. Amy instantly saw the resemblance.

“Amy, Doctor, Rory,” Bill introduced. “This is my cousin, Arnoff.”

“Pleased to meet you,” he said in a pleasant, tenor voice, giving an elegant bow. He looked enough like Bill to be her brother, more actually. Amy had never seen two people look so much alike, yet still have completely different builds and genders. He was wearing shorts and a tank top that revealed well defined arms, and very pale skin, and sported a long blond ponytail down his back.

“I hear you are going on a monster hunt,” he said, looking part enthusiastic, part unsettled.

“And _you’re_ not coming,” Bill said in her booming voice. “You’re useless in the jungle.”

He swatted her on the shoulder. “Like you’re any good in a med ward.” He turned to the others. “I’m the head physician here. Welcome. And thank you for bringing the revival units.”

He turned and looked Rory up and down. He waved a hand at the volleyball players. “Join us. We’re having a Meanies vs. Weenies game.”

“Huh?” Rory said at this nonsequeteur.

The cousin grinned, “Big guys versus Little guys,” he explained.

Rory turned to Amy, “I’m not a little guy!” he protested. Erik walked up beside him and crossed his arms, surveying the game, towering from his vast height, his chest straining his jungle fatigues. His arms like hams.

Rory sighed in defeat. “Fine. I’m serving.”

—————

Darvish called Erik aside. The Doctor wandered after them and Amy followed, leaving the Trelwins to Bill.

Darvish nodded to Erik, “I’ve got our gear assembled, go take a look and see if there’s anything we need to add.” He waved over to the west side of the mall, where a wide niche in the stump was set up as a busy transfer station, dedicated to the hauling of supplies up and down the chimney.

An endless train of hover trams emerged from the tunnels, like ergonomic mine carts, bearing ore, refined metals, and finished products from below. Stevedores offloaded them and hoisted the goods up a complex array of long cables to the cranes on the platform at the top.

It was a seething mass of activity, supplies piled up in bundles and crates. A waterfall of huge cables stretched down the side of the chimney from the landing stages above.

The Doctor and Amy’s heads tilted back. “Cool,” the Doctor said, bright eyes admiring the massive ancient wooden walls towering over them, and the beehive of human activity.

Darvish hoisted a box containing their ipods and life support units to his broad shoulder.

“I promised you a place to work, Doctor,” he said.

The Doctor spun, hands clasped, bouncing in eagerness. “Yes!” There was nothing like something new to get him wired as tight as a spring. Amy rolled her eyes. But couldn’t resist looking around at the huge alien space again.

“Follow me.” Darvish took off in a rolling stride, the Doctor and Amy eager on his heels.

—————

Arnoff grinned and clipped Rory on the shoulder. “Come on.” He trotted off toward the volleyball field.

“You’re the physician here?” Rory asked. “You’re taking this very casually.”

Arnoff hailed one of the volleyball players as he trotted past, “We’ll be back for the second set!” he shouted. He turned “You’re the nurse?” he asked for confirmation.

Rory nodded.

“I’m taking it very seriously. We’ll go and wake up my four patients then come back for a game.” He turned and stared at Rory with determined pale blue eyes. “I’ve got my second in command watching over the patients, with orderlies to help her, she’s fully capable. But it is important in an enclosed society like this for people to take rest and recreation time. Otherwise people become too intent, too absorbed in their work, and start to become depressed and overstressed.

“I’ve worked hard to make this a vital and stable community. I can’t very well demand everyone else take a break if I’m not willing to do the same.

“Besides,” he grinned. “We’re going to pound the Meanies into the ground.”

He hopped forward, ponytail swinging in exuberance, and Rory laughed. He kept pace with the shorter man’s energetic stride. Arnoff led Rory across the compound and into a wooden tunnel. Rory stared around, surprised.

Arnoff smiled at his reaction. “We tunneled out some of the major roots to convert them into dwellings and living spaces. Even underground, Yblins prefer wood around them.”

Rory nodded, his mind slightly boggling at the idea that he was walking down the inside of a tree root.

—————

Darvish led Amy and the Doctor past the restaurants and into a wide, stadium style cement corridor.

Amy looked around at the well-lit space, noticing the mirrors set at angled intervals that bounced natural sunlight down from the light well.

The walls were smooth, the corridor wide enough for several people to walk abreast. She could hear the faint sounds of pounding and clanks, metal machinery reverberating in the distance. And the ground sloped subtly downward the whole way.

“Does this lead down to the mines?” Amy asked.

Darvish looked over his shoulder. “No. This is our manufacturing sector.” He nodded down the long corridor, the end disappeared in the distance around a slight curve. “It leads down to our smelters, manufactories, and foundries.”

Amy frowned. “How do you run a foundry in the roots of a tree without setting the tree on fire? How do you do it underground without smothering on smoke? Wouldn’t people suffocate?”

She expected to smell smoke, yet she noticed the air around her was perfectly cool and clean, there was even a slight breeze.

Darvish smiled at her curiosity, an unexpectedly charming smile on such a short, hulking body. “We have ventilators that run up through the wood of the stump, exhausting the heat and drawing down fresh air and sunlight,” he said in the same delighted “instructors” voice the Doctor would sometimes get.

“The foundries and manufactories are converted from the old worked out mine workings. Hydraulic safety doors can be closed to smother any fires or in case of emergency.”

The Doctor nodded in approval. He had such a huge grin on his face Amy thought he was about to explode. He tripped down the corridor like a little boy on holiday. Their footsteps echoed in the large place. It was so bright and airy that Amy found herself amazed that they were underground.

As they passed a cross corridor, three young men emerged, one of them carrying a little girl.

“George!” Darvish called out. The men changed course and joined them. They were all identical. Amy’s eyes widened, her heart picked up a beat, she grinned unashamedly at them.

All three were tall, well muscled, dark blond, and shared the same rather blunt but attractive features.

“Doctor, Amy,” Darvish said, “May I present some of the members of my team, they’ll be joining us on the safari. George, Eldon, and Garon.” He waved at each one.

“I knew a fellow named Garon once! Fantastic bloke! Pleased to meet you!” The Doctor thrust out a delighted hand. The men laughed and shook it. Then turned to shake Amy’s hand.

As Amy appreciated the display of male pulchritude, the Doctor started making faces and wiggly fingers at the little girl. She was all of two years old and shared the men’s dark blond hair. She was looking at him with a sort of fascinated apprehension, very upright in her father’s arms.

“And who are you?” the Doctor asked delightedly.

The girl gave him an unexpectedly practical look from a two year old. “Abba,” she said in a quiet, not quite shy voice.

Suddenly the Doctor was holding out his long welcoming hands to her. She looked at her father. He nodded and she leaned forward into the Docter’s waiting hands.

He plucked her up and danced her around in a circle, one arm under her bottom, the other holding her tiny hand in his fingers, waltzing her around, singing. “Abba, Abba! Abba Banana. Always take a banana to a party!”

The girl grinned and tilted her head back, whirling around with him. Arms slung out.

The Doctor stopped spinning and handed her back to her father. Stumbling slightly from dizziness.

The girl clapped.

“You’re nuts,” Amy said.

“Says the girl who feeds me apples,” the Doctor replied.

Suddenly he stopped and looked at the three men, then back at the little girl. “Which one is your daddy?” he asked.

She happily pointed to the man in the middle. Not the one the Doctor had handed her to.

“Oops, sorry,” the Doctor said, but he was studying them intently. “You all look alike. Except you,” he pointed to the man he’d handed Abba to.

“That’s because I’m not a twin, just a triplet,” the man said in a surprisingly deep voice. “But I’m the favorite uncle, so that’s okay, it’s it Abba?”

His brother choked in indignation. “Oh, you so are not!” He tickled the girl on the tummy. “I’m the favorite uncle. Aren’t I Abby?”

“Wait, wait!” Amy threw her hands up. She stared at the three identical men. Two of them were absolutely identical, the one holding the child was identical in everything, but perhaps having a slightly shorter nose.

“You’re all triplets, but only you two are twins?” she asked, pointing at the two identical ones. All three heads bobbed at the same time.

“But that’s...!” The Doctor, delighted, stared. “Even statistically, the probability of identical twins and a fraternal triplet are...” he started counting up on his fingers. He threw his hands wide. “That’s awesome!”

He turned to Amy. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve lived and never seen that?”

Darvish ignored the byplay. He turned back to the Brothers. “Erik’s team has arrived, they’re checking out the supplies, get kitted up and join them,” he ordered.

The Brothers nodded and left.

Abba waved to the Doctor over her uncle’s shoulder. The Doctor waved back.

“Now,” Darvish continued down the corridor and opened the first door after the cross section. “I think this will suit you, Doctor.”

The Doctor bounced in and looked around with approval. It was a geologist’s lab, filled with tools and worktables. He rubbed his hands together. “This will do nicely!”

Darvish dropped the box of ipods off his shoulder onto a table and waved outside. “When you’re finished, just follow the corridor back to the Mall. I’ve got some last minute preparations to do.”

The Doctor waved him off absently, already poking around the tools and starting to pry open an ipod. “Amy, hand me that electron shunt."

Darvish left them to their work.

—————

When they came back Rory was in the midst of the Meanies and Weenies volleyball game. Amy and the Doctor stopped to watch. Zeke and Nelda ambled up, Zeke yanked on the Doctor’s coat and apparently demanded an explanation, a smell of butterscotch hovered in the air.

The Doctor explained, resulting in a faint smell as if he’d been spritzed with a melange of food and woodsy and flowery scents, using his hands to sign to Nelda the parts he couldn’t explain otherwise.

Chitchi watched the explanation, then suddenly leapt into the game. He soared up, Amy’s eyebrows popped up seeing how far he stretched out, and swatted the ball back down over the net with one long suedy brown hand.

The Meanies groaned and exclaimed in equal measure. Without bothering to ask permission Nelda and Zeke joined the game, apparently understanding the general principles, although with a tendency to use their foot-hands as well as their upper hands. Resulting in some amazing acrobatic maneuvers. Including Zeke somehow flipping over the net and ending up on the Meanies team.

And no one could spike a ball like a Trelwin, they simply reached their long arms completely over the net and slammed the ball directly into the ground.

The spectacle certainly drew a crowd, and the Trelwins didn’t quite seem to understand when the game was over. The teams left, both laughing, and groaning and shaking their heads, since no one was quite sure who had won. The Trelwins, still under Bill’s watchful eye, kept batting the ball over the net until someone mentioned food, then they dropped it and ambled along after the safari team. Taking up seats at the far end of the indicated table and looking expectantly toward where savory aromas were wafting from the restaurant behind them.

—————

Despite everything they’d already done, it was still only about noon. As they sat at an “outdoor” wooden table, waiting for their order to be filled by one of the restaurants, a loud horn blew out over the vast space.

Suddenly people started pouring out of all the tunnels like lemmings going over a cliff. In instants there were lines queued up at all the different restaurant counters, tables were filled, people wandered around in bunches and shoals like moving fish. Some heading for the tunnel entrances beside the stairs to the more “upscale” restaurants up in the walls of the stump.

“I didn’t expect so many people,” Amy said, staring around, eyes a bit wide. Rory was craning his neck beside her just as fascinated. Miners, technicians, office workers, a few adults herding a group of children of different ages, from nursery to school age kids.

The chimney resounded with conversations, the clang of cookpots, the clunk and shuffle of chairs and dishes on wooden tables. It was a bit like a fair, except everyone was in work clothes.

Amy frowned, then turned around on her seat and stared at people passing by. “What is it?” Rory asked, as Jute and Eula and Pickles started laying out their order.

Amy’s eyes glanced across Jute’s back as he set a bowl of ripper fruit in front of her, and that’s when she realized what it was. She stared at the backs of the passersby.

“They’re not wearing chutes,” she said. Then she heard what she said and rolled her eyes at herself. “Of course they’re not, not much use for parachutes underground.” She turned and looked at the Doctor who was ripping a fruit open on the other side of the table, grinning at her.

She shrugged at the twinkling look in his eye, and took the half fruit he handed to her. “It’s funny how fast you get used to things.”

They all ate in companionable conversation, having grown easy with each other on Safari, the Brothers were staggered out among them, so they joined in the conversation and the two teams started to integrate.

As everyone started shoving their plates away, Darvish stood up at the head of the table. Even standing up, Erik, sitting beside him, still dwarfed him. Although Darvish’s shoulders were almost as wide.

Amy noticed the short Safari leader was wearing a large double bladed ax strapped to his back, and bit down on the fierce impulse to start singing “Hi Ho!”

Rory poked her in the ribs, having seen her lips move. He scowled at her, she glared back. The Doctor just grinned at them.

“I know some of you haven’t had much sleep,” Darvish began in his strangely erudite diction, “but since this is now a rescue mission in _two_ ways we’re going to head out today anyway, we can still get in a good few hours of...”

A shrill scream split the cavern air. Everyone’s head swiveled toward the sound. Arnoff, who’d joined them for lunch, jumped up on his bench and craned his head. A crowd of increasingly panicked miners were gathering in a knot halfway across the common, the Trelwins were already loping flat out.

Arnoff jumped down, grabbed up his medical kit and ran, Rory and the Doctor right behind him. Everyone else abandoned their meal and followed.

They arrived just in time to see the Trelwins worm their way to the center of the group where a miner lay on the floor, his hardhat rolled away to one side. Zeke raised a long hammerblow of an arm and let it fall on the man’s chest, making the whole body jump.

The miners around exclaimed in outrage and several grabbed the elderly Trelwin by his gray-speckled arms, dragging him away with angry mutterings.

“Let him go!” The Doctor’s voice dropped into a moment of silence like a whipcrack.

The miner’s instinctively let go at that authoritative tone. Bill used her bulk to shove forward through the crowd and stood protectively over the Trelwins who were huddling together amid the hostile group. Amy stood beside her, hands on her hips, her glare daring anyone to try anything. Nelda wrapped a trembling pale hand around the back of her calf.

Arnoff had followed in the wake his cousin had forged through the crowd and dropped down beside the limp miner, he pulled a life support unit out of his bag and calibrated it, slapping it onto the miner’s exposed chest where Rory had already ripped the man’s shirt open.

There was a click, and the lights on the unit started to blink. The man’s chest rose and fell. “Here,” the Doctor handed down an ipod he’d pulled out of his pocket. Arnoff fitted it into the man’s ears as Rory had shown him and started to turn it on. The Doctor’s hand on his shoulder stopped him.

“Anyone know what he was thinking before he collapsed?” the Doctor asked the growing, anxious crowd.

A woman miner held up her hand, like a kid in school and stepped forward hesitantly. “He was just talking about how the ventilator fans needed fixing again, then he got this faraway look and just,” she flicked her hand, a lost look on her face, “switched off.”

The Doctor nodded down at Arnoff. The physician flicked on the switch and the man blinked, then looked up, obviously surprised to find himself the focus of a ring of eyes. He shrank back against the ground, “I’ll get permission before I make the modifications, I swear!” he said, holding his hands up in a wave, holding off all that anxious energy.

“Forget that for now, how do you feel?” Arnoff asked, diverting the man’s attention from his thoughts. He helped the miner up and started doing a quick physical.

Nelda suddenly yanked viciously on Amy’s pant leg, Amy looked down to find the white Trelwin pointing a long white arm at the woman who had answered the question. All three Trelwin were stinking of burnt tar.

“Doctor!” Amy yelled and pointed.

The Doctor saw the direction of their pointing, turned and slapped the woman, hard. She staggered back, her hand going to her cheek in shock. The crowd gasped. “What did you do that for?” she demanded.

“You were thinking about those modifications he suggested, weren’t you?” the Doctor demanded.

“Yes,” the woman nodded down at the man, “it was brilliant," her eyes started to glow with enthusiasm, "it's an entirely new idea, I didn't understand it at first, but if we...”

The Doctor turned and looked at Nelda, she was still pointing at the woman. The Doctor slapped her again.

The woman staggered back, staring at him, aghast.

“What does red look like?” the Doctor demanded violently. The tone of his voice demanding an answer.

The woman stared at him in bafflement.

“What the _hell_ is going on!” demanded a rough male voice. A truly huge man shoved through the ring of hunters who had surrounded the Doctor, protecting him from the crowd.

“Keep your bloody hands off my wife!”

The Doctor’s eyes flew to Nelda, she was now pointing at the man.

“Ah.” The Doctor looked up at the huge man hulking over him. He suddenly reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled paper sack. “Would you like a jelly baby?” he asked, beaming his best, “I’m mad but I’m harmless, go with it,” smile.

The man’s thick eyebrows beetled in puzzlement, and Erik took the instant to step between the Doctor and the hulking miner. He held his hands out placatingly. “He didn’t mean any harm. He was trying to distract your wife before she could be affected too. The Trelwins can see who is about to be affected. He was helping.”

“By _slapping_ her?!” the man said, still more confused than angry.

The Doctor leaned around the protective bulk of Erik and offered a lime green jelly baby and his best harmless puppy eyes. “I really am sorry.” He turned those eyes on the woman. “Inspiration can sometimes trigger the monster.” The crowd shuffled and mumbled at the word monster. He quickly overrode the noise, “I had to distract you.” He rummaged in his bag and offered her an orange jelly baby. “Peace?” he asked, with that pathetically hopeful look on his face.

The woman stared at him like he was a madman. “It’s candy!” Amy yelled from across the crowd. “He’s harmless,” she said in her usual, brutally casual, practical tone. “Go ahead and take it. He’ll just keep making those sad eyes at you until you do.”

Someone in the crowd chuckled. The woman tentatively reached out and took the luminous orange tidbit from his hand. She hesitantly bit into it. The Doctor grinned and bounced on his toes, tossing a purple jelly baby in his own mouth and munching happily.

The crowd relaxed. Arnoff stood up and helped the original miner victim to his feet. The man obviously none the worst for wear. “Alright everyone, you’ve all read the memos. Go back to your work and keep your mind on what you’re doing. Don’t _think_ too hard. I’m sure that won’t be a problem for most of you.”

There were several guffaws, and grinning grumbles and the crowd dispersed. Food service workers converged in to start cleaning up the mess of spilled food that had been knocked over when the crowd had rushed forward.

“Right,” Darvish said, as Arnoff led his patient off to the infirmary for more checks. “I think this shows why we need to get started as quickly as possible.” His eyes landed on each of the Safari members. He nodded toward the stairs. “Our equipment is already waiting for us up top.

"Boys,” he called out to his own trio, “Gather your personal belongings and catch us up.” The brothers nodded and trotted away.

Amy stared up at the vast, ridged, wooden chimney and the long spiral of metal stairs that waited for them. She sighed.

Rory came up beside her and followed her gaze. “You’d think they’d have invented the elevator.”

—————

As they all trooped to the wide base of the main stairs, Amy was surprised to see Janet waiting for them. The woman had wandered off on her own business as soon as they arrived.

She was even more surprised to see the lanky woman draw Erik behind the metal staircase and talk to him earnestly for several minutes before reaching up, grabbing the hair at the back of his neck and drawing his face down for a long thorough kiss.

Amy hadn’t seen that coming. She’d thought they were just colleagues. She turned away and realized the others couldn’t see them from their angle.

She shoved it aside as she trudged up the endless rattly metal stairs. She helped Bill keep an eye on the Trelwins. But the monkey-like creatures seemed to be taking things as seriously as everyone else. They simply grabbed onto the wooden vanes and climbed straight up the heartwood, making much better time than the safari group, who had to take the spiral route, and whatever switchback stairs would allow them a quicker ascent.

When they emerged back onto the flat landing field at the top Amy was breathing hard and could feel sweat trickling down her scalp. The breeze felt wonderful through her hair.

The Trelwins were waiting for them. They seemed to have realized that Amy and Bill were their responsibility. Darvish, the Doctor and the rest of the hunters, both groups, were already waiting. Standing near the outer edge beside a large pile of safari equipment, and four modified cargo trams, like the ones hauling ore below.

“Good!” Rory said, leaning over with his hands on his knees and catching his breath. “We don’t have to walk, we can fly.”

“Not fly,” the Doctor said, ambling up to them with his hands in his pockets. Again looking annoyingly refreshed. “The trams are like the carts, they’ve got antigrav, but not enough to actually fly.”

“Then what are we doing back up here?” Rory demanded.

Darvish stepped over, uncoiling a long rope behind him. “There’s no exterior exit below, for security reasons. If we can get out, something could get in. We'll push off the trams and let them float down on their antigravs.”

“That doesn’t sound safe,” Rory said dubiously.

“It’s not." Darvish bent down and clipped a hook to a ring embedded in the trunk. He tested the line with a jerk. "The rest of us will abseil down.”

Rory stared at him with his mouth open. He stared at the line. Then he stared blankly over the edge.

It was thirty stories straight down. “Oh, joy.”


	21. Chapter 21

“Why can’t we have one of the cranes lower us down?” Rory asked, pointing at one of the industrial cranes that was even now hauling up a container loaded with ore.

“Because the last time we did that, one of the Iguanadons climbed up the cable and nearly got into the community. Abseil lines aren’t strong enough to hold them.”

Rory’s head juttered in a nervous nod. He could understand that. But he still didn’t like it. He looked back over the edge, it was 300 feet to the tops of the trees below, not even all the way to the ground. He stepped back, trying not to hyperventilate.

Amy stood beside him staring down the trunk with bright eyes, bouncing on her toes. “This will be fun!”

Rory glared at her.

The Doctor came up and clipped an abseil line to the parachute harness in Rory’s jacket. “Relax.” he said, as he attached a brake wheel to the line in front of him and clipped the rope dispenser, like a huge old film reel box, to his belt. “We’re going to pair up experienced abseilers with the newbies. You’ll be fine.”

Amy was avidly listening to Darvish as the brutish hunter clipped equipment to her with deft fingers and instructed her on its use in his teacher’s voice.

Rory tried to ignore the fact that they were standing on bark. The wood under his feet was dark brown and spongy, he looked over and could see the line where the lighter, harder grained wood of the inner tree started. The railings had been taken down here, to allow them access to the edge, and a flight crew was standing by, making sure they were all tied off to the thick metal eyelets that were driven into the wood back beyond the bark line. But Rory still felt a distinctly queasy rippling in his stomach.

The sun was bright on the landing field, the breeze was comfortably cool. Everyone else seemed to be calm. Bill and the other hunters were double checking that the supplies were tied down in the trams. The Trelwins had already gone over the edge, climbing down by hand.

Erik came along, checking everyone's lines and equipment. The Doctor looked up and looked around. "Where's Janet?"

Erik gave Amy's brake wheel a tug and grunted in approval. She still wasn't sure how he felt about her wearing his dead sister's clothes. Or if he knew she'd seen Janet kiss him. He gave her a level, unreadable look and turned to the Doctor.

"She's decided to stay behind and take the next courier out to Bayside, she thinks she can be more help there. And if we need a scientist, we've got you and Darvish. He's qualified in botany, geology, and zoology.”

Erik moved to check the Doctor's harness. The Doctor’s hands kept getting in his way as the Doctor clipped clips and explained how he knew how to do it all. Erik finally slapped his hands away and the Doctor pulled them up, like a little boy having his belt checked.

Erik glared at him, then moved on to Rory. He handed the brake wheel to Rory and pulled his belay line through, clipping it to the rings in the trunk. He tugged it, then checked all Rory’s harness clips and buckles.

“Keep calm. Stay focused. Take your time. Ignore the hot shots,” he jerked a thumb at the Doctor and Amy who were leaning over the edge oohing and awing at the height. Rory jerked a nod. Erik clapped him on the shoulder and moved on.

Rory rotated his shoulder and grimaced. But oddly, felt better. He jerked on his belay rope, then jerked again just to make sure. He played it out a bit and backed up, walking toward the edge, jerking himself to a halt every few feet by squeezing on the wheel lock grip.

He could do this.

“Isn’t this great?” Amy demanded, looking up, eyes shining, grinning, the wind blowing her red hair in her face. She stared out over the huge vista, the jungle looking like a cushion of broccoli below.

Rory stared at her. “I’d have you committed if I could find a sanitarium that would take you,” he said with calm conviction.

“Awww!” she bounced forward and gave him a smooch on the cheek. “You’re so sweet.”

He rolled his eyes.

“Right!” Darvish bellowed with a trollish set of lungs, his voice carrying over the wind. “Tram teams first.”

The Doctor, Amy, and Rory turned their attention farther down the line. The rest of the hunters had doubled up. One on each side of a loaded tram. They tipped the trams over the side.

Rory yelped a bit, his stomach freefalling, until he noticed that each of the trams was tethered, front and back, to a hunter on each side.

Bill and Jute, Pickles and Erik, Eula and George, and the other Brothers, all backed over the side of the cliff, a tram suspended between each of them.

The antigravs were apparently strong enough to keep the weight from pulling the hunters off the stump, they belayed down, jockeying the trams between them. Darvish stood overhead, watching until he was satisfied.

“Right, now the rest of you. I’ll take end point.” He trotted over and clipped his line to the end anchor loop. He nodded to the flight crew which was standing by to watch over the lines. He stepped back and then over the edge, tilting out backward, line taught.

“Keep an eye open for gun placements,” he said. Then stepped back and disappeared with a zizz of uncoiling rope.

“Cool!”  Amy walked backwards and bounced over the edge. Rory swallowed a scream. But he stared fixedly at her ropes, they bounced once, twice. He released a breath.

“Come on, Rory,” The Doctor said, gripping him on the shoulder. “Just back up. Lean back. Let the rope take your weight. All you have to do is walk backward. Once you get used to it, you can start to belay longer jumps. Just ease up on the brake and let gravity work.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Rory said.

The Doctor grinned a laugh. That happy little boy grin that said nothing could be wrong in the world. “Don’t worry. And remember, if worst comes to worst, we still have our chutes.

“Come on. On the count of three. One, two...”

Rory walked back, his toes unconsciously gripping at the bark through his soft boots. He leaned back on his rope, felt the corner of the bark bite into the ball of his foot and leaned back.

“Three!” the Doctor said. And disappeared below him.

Rory ignored the fact that his larynx was clutching his throat like a monkey in a tree. He stepped down, slipped, screamed, slammed his foot back against the bark and staggered backward, downward, three steps.

Don’t panic. Be cool! Don’t look down. Think of something else.

He tried desperately to ignore the wind rushing past him. The empty sucking feel of nothingness below him. The almost fluorescent blueness of the sky overhead. I’m just walking. I’m just walking backward, sitting in my harness. Nothing important.

He stepped backward, again, again.

Gradually the lip rose up over him, and the world became nothing but a panoply of dusty gray bark.

This would be so much easier and faster if they could have just taken the Tardis. His mind had been nagging at him all day, he knew that people were dying, even as they played cards on the shuttle, even as he took time out to play a volleyball game, for goodness sake!

Step. Step.

Yet, now that he thought about it. They’d only got back from their first safari yesterday.

Step. Step.

They were actually making pretty good time. Yeah, the Tardis would be faster. But, with the zone causing electromagnetic disruption, he had no idea if it could even _materialize_ at the source.

Step. Step.

Besides, who knows how long it would have taken to haul the Tardis out of that pool. This way might actually have been quicker.

“Hey, Doctor!” Amy yelled, from somewhere off to his right. “Is this one of them?”

Rory looked down and to the side. The “ground” he was standing on, was a totally vertical cliff. His hand spastically gripped his brake wheel harder. He jerked to a stop. He calmed his breathing, and relaxed his grip on the brake slightly.

Off to his right the Doctor swung over to see what Amy was pointing to. She’d found something sprouting out of the bark.

—————

The Doctor released some slack on his rope and ran horizontally, in an arch, over to Amy’s rope. He grabbed her belay line and anchored himself.

“Is that one of them?” Amy asked, slightly below him.

He grinned down at her. She grinned back, her hair streaming downward like lipstick in the rain.

“Yeah, good spotting.” He pulled out the sonic, and keeping a good grip on it (he eyed the hundreds of feet drop below him, he didn’t want to lose it up here) he flicked it open and scanned the CCT camera and dual laser placements sprouting out of the bark.

The CCT camera swiveled to look at him, and he waved cheerily into the lens, careful not to point the sonic into the monitor. He checked the connectors and studied his sonic. “This one seems to be in good working order guys!” he yelled into the camera. “Energy levels good and the laser crystals are intact.”

The CCT camera nodded at him, then swiveled back outward and downward. The gun stalks rotated like a man limbering up his arms.

“Why have they got CCT cameras on a tree stump?” Amy yelled up to him. Her eyes cut sideways to check on Rory’s progress. He was walking downwards, slow but steady. She grinned. That’s her man.

She looked back up at the Doctor, to see he’d been checking too. They shared a fond smile.

“It’s not like anyone’s going to be jaywalking out here,” she added, waving at the camera.

He flipped the sonic screwdriver, completely forgetting his caution of earlier and pocketed it. “Defensive measure,” he yelled back down, the wind snatching at their voices, even as close as they were. “Lots of the jungle animals can climb. So they have a bolewatch here too. Wouldn’t want anything to get up top and climb down into the community.”

Amy nodded. Then jerked on her belay line, causing a ripple up to where he was holding on. “Race you down!”

“Only to the red zone!” he yelled back.

She whooped and took off her brake, she zizzed down with a bound.

He released her rope and swung back to his own lane. He released his own brake, the wind whipped at him as he kicked back, leaning into his harness.

“Come on, Rory!” he yelled up.

Rory stared down, to see his wife and his friend disappearing below him. “Maniacs!” he yelled down.

The wind whipped his voice away.

—————

He bounded back and down, ten feet at a jump. His line played out blue, hypnotic, whizzing through the wheel. Then it suddenly flashed red.

Rory immediately clamped down on the wheel lock. He bumped forward into the bark. He grabbed a handhold. Fortunately, the bark on this tree was smoother than the one on the other home tree, otherwise it would be like trying to climb down vertical gulleys.

Chitchi stopped above him. The Trelwin, crawling upside down like a squirrel, had been accompanying him the last several bounds.

Rory stopped and looked sideways. All the other climbers had stopped as well. When he looked down, he could see why.

The tree was undercut just below them.

Past this point there wasn’t any trunk to bounce against.

Farther along, he could see the hunter teams lowering their trams down past the cutoff point. Going straight down. He saw Bill and Jute settle into their harnesses, sitting, and slowly lower themselves down, guiding the tram between them.

Farther along, the other teams were starting to do the same.

Before he could wonder what to do next he felt a hand on his shoulder. He jumped. Fortunately the wheel lock stayed locked.

“Sorry,” the Doctor said beside him.

Rory turned to look over his shoulder and was surprised to see the Doctor standing beside him, with Zeke’s face sitting on his shoulder.

He reared back in surprise. His foot slipped, but he slammed it back against the tree in a spurt of panic. “Don’t do that!”

“Sorry,” the Doctor said again. Once he fully turned, Rory could see that Zeke was actually wrapped around the Doctor’s back like a speckled gray backpack, the suedy monkey-face looking over the Doctor’s shoulder.

“What’s going on?” Rory asked.

“I forgot about the undercut,” the Doctor said. He waved a hand at the artificial canyon just below them, raw smooth wood, running horizontal as far as the eye could see, cut straight back into the trunk a good 70 meters.

“It’s like the lowest platform on the tree,” the Doctor explained, wiping his hair out of his eyes as the wind buffeted them.

Rory realized his butt was getting sore. All this pressure on the harness was a real pain. He shifted.

“It’s a defensive measure,” the Doctor continued. “It’s meant to keep jungle animals from climbing up. But it means the Trelwin can’t climb down, either. No handholds. We have to help them down,” the Doctor said.

Rory nodded, he could see past the Doctor where Darvish was helping Amy start to inch down past the undercut, both of them sitting in their slings, ropes looped together. Nelda on Amy’s back.

Rory looked up at Chitchi. “Need a ride, buddy?”

The Trelwin looked down at him with blank, curious, animal eyes. Yet Rory knew he understood more than he seemed to. The Trelwin perched above him, gripping upside down on the bark like a chipmunk, his overlong limbs giving him the unsettling look of a spider.

The Doctor and Zeke must have smelled something to him, Rory got a waft of something before the wind blew it away. He felt Chitchi’s strong hand grip his wrist. He looked up.

The Trelwin looked at him hesitantly. His hide was soft, like a velvet teddy bear, but as strong as cable. Rory nodded and leaned closer to the wall.

It was a creepy feeling, like something out of a monster movie, as the Trelwin crawled down over his back. He felt the wiry body settle against his backbone, the back legs wrapped around his hips and both back hands grasped the rope in front of his stomach.

The Trelwin’s upper arms wrapped around his chest. Strangely not strangling him, or cutting off his breathing, for all he could feel they were strong enough to crush him with a hug. Maybe it was how they learned to hold on as babies.

Rory shrugged at the thought, and felt the Trelwin settle more firmly against his back. The suedy face settled on his shoulder. The weirdly soft cheek next to his own.

Okay, that was creepy, in a sort of cuddly way. He looked over at the Doctor. The Doctor was grinning at him with approval.

“I’m going to wind my rope around yours, like Amy and Darvish have done,” the Doctor yelled over the wind. “I’ll lock my rope into the loop on your brake wheel, so we don’t spin apart. Get ready to brace your feet against mine.”

Rory nodded, then held still as the Doctor crawled under him, then back up and over to the other side, he watched as the Doctor slipped his rope into the extra clip on his brake wheel that he hadn’t known the use for. Then felt awkward for a moment as it felt like the Doctor was playing footsie with him, until they could get their boots braced against each other.

And all that time he was trying to ignore the fact that they were doing it all halfway up a cliff.

They lowered down, until Rory could see the roof of the undercut, over them, laser smooth, 70 meters deep, stretching all the way around the tree. He supposed it didn't matter if they cut around the whole tree, since it was already dead.

He and the Doctor synchronized the releases on their wheel locks, lowering down together into an alien jungle. A monkey literally on each of their backs.

Leadworth was never like this.

—————

About 20 feet below treetop level, the trunk had angled out far enough again that the Trelwins leapt off of them and continued down the bark on their own.

The Doctor and Rory were the last ones down.

“Bout time you two made it!” Amy said, bouncing up to them, red cheeked with excitement. She punched Rory on the shoulder and helped them unbuckled their coupled wheel locks.

He and the Doctor stumbled backward from each other, like two drunken sailors getting their land legs.

All around them, other ropes were fluttering down from the top, being sucked back into their cartridges like tape measures.

Darvish walked up, a com unit to his ear. “10 and 9 ready to detach,” he said into the device.

“You better stand back,” he said as the Doctor and Rory’s lines suddenly went slack, then started spiraling down like snakes. Hundreds of feet of ribbon rope flopped down with snakey grace. Darvish hit a button on each of their reels. They started sucking up the rope, even as it landed.

“Better take those off before their done,” he said. “The recoil at the end is a killer.”

He stomped off and the Doctor and Rory hastily scrambled to unclip the containers from their belt harnesses.

—————

“Dang, I’m bushed.” Rory staggered to the side and sat down on the sawed off stump of a sapling. Comparatively speaking. He looked up at the gray-barked wall of the tree towering above them. It wasn’t like being at the the base of a tree so much as like sitting outside the wall of Alcatraz. He couldn’t even see any buttress roots from here.

It had been a long day, he and Amy had only gotten about 4 hours of sleep the night before, before they’d left in the shuttle, and none of them had got much sleep the night before that.

“Here,” the Doctor said, holding out his hand. There was a bean in it.

“What’s this?” Rory asked, taking it. It was an unremarkable brown bean, looking a bit raisiny, like it had been dried.

“Cola bean,” the Doctor said.

Rory stared. Then stared some more. “Are you telling me, that _you_ ,” he put emphasis on the word, “are walking around with a concentrated form of caffeine in your pocket?”

“Yeah, why?” the Doctor said, popping a bean in his mouth. Rory stared in horror.

"Right!" Darvish clapped his hands like a thunderclap, gaining the attention of everyone in the clearing. George and Garon were just towing in the last of the trams.

Amy walked up and the Doctor handed her a cola bean. She took it without comment.

"Erik, I expect your team to follow the leads of my crew," Darvish said. "This isn't your usual area, and we know the local geography and fauna."

Erik nodded. The other hunters all looked at each other and rearranged their mental pecking orders.

Darvish pointed at himself with one large hand. "I'm in charge of the trek." He pointed at Erik. "Erik's in charge of the mission." He pointed a long finger at the Doctor. "The Doctor's in charge of the technical end.

"You all know the drill," he concluded. "Keep your eyes peeled, your weapons primed, and your feet dry." The others all nodded, as if this was a familiar litany.

"Normally we'd be walking. But since this is an emergency, we'll be riding the carts whenever possible. We've outfitted them with mining lasers to cut through the undergrowth. George, Garon, you're in charge of those." The two brothers nodded.

Darvish looked up at the sky. It was darker here in the trees, the sun seeming lower than it had from the landing field. "I know a lot of you haven't gotten much sleep since this all started. That's why I let my guys sleep late this morning. We can cover the first shift and let you catch up. We'll still be camping in familiar territory tonight. But until then, we push it. People's lives are depending on us.

"Check the gear and get stowed.  We move out in ten." Everyone broke up, Darvish waved George and Garon over to the armed trams. Bill and Pickles headed for the piles of supplies. Eldon and Jute started gathering up the rope cartridges.

Erik walked over and handed Rory a machete. He handed the Doctor and Amy water canteens.

That's when Amy realized. "It's not hot!"

The Doctor grinned at her and slung his canteen over his shoulder. "Not all jungles are tropical jungles, Amy."

She grunted at him, and he laughed, they wandered off to help Jute gather up the last of the rope cartridges.

Rory looked up at the jungle trees at the edge of the clearing, wondering where the Trelwins had got to. He hoped they hadn't wandered off.

He found Zeke up on a branch, taste testing the local food. He couldn't tell if it was a bug or a berry from this distance, and didn't want to know. He could still remember the unnerving feeling of Chitchi's breath in his ear as they'd descended the last stretch.

If Zeke was here, Chitchi wouldn't be far off. And he doubted Nelda would abandon the Doctor now, although he didn't see her white hide anywhere.

Rory levered himself up and wandered over to where Darvish and the brothers were inspecting the lasers. He may as well learn how to be useful.

 

—————

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	22. Chapter 22

Rory manned the laser, keeping it aimed as it automatically cut a hole in the foliage big enough for the tram to float through.

Darvish braced his feet and spread out a map. The Doctor helped him hold down the corners that fluttered in the soft breeze of their passage. The tram slipped slowly through the newly cauterized tunnel.

“We’re here,” Darvish said, pointing to an area very near the large circle that indicated the mine. He dragged a finger along the map and tapped a point beyond the dotted red line that indicated the zone. “The crash lane ends here.” It was very near the center of the zone. The map, a satellite picture overlaid on a topographical map, showed the broken off tree limbs and sheered treetops of the crash lane. It looked like a gash in the foliage.

“Since you don’t know what you’re looking for specifically, we’ll head there first and hope we can find survivors. We’ll keep our eyes open along the way.” He started rolling up the map, a simple parchment coated in plastic to keep it dry, nothing electronic for the zone to disable.

“Do you have any idea what you’re looking for?” Darvish asked as he stowed the map under the driver’s seat where George steered them along, using a sort of fishing/sonar device to find the clearest route through the jungle foliage.

The Doctor shook his head. “No idea. I’ll know it when I see it.”

—————

They trundled along the forest, the lasers cutting a hole through any vines or saplings they couldn’t go around, leaving a patchwork tunnel in their wake.

The jungle here was more like forest. Birds twittered in the trees all around them, small mammals scuttled from branch to branch, and they saw occasional browsers, big deerlike animals, but differently patterned here than in the north.

Nelda, Zeke, and Chitchi paralleled them, swinging through the trees. Occasionally dropping down to perch on a corner of one of the trams if they got tired.

The first hour or so of the trip had been spent just getting organized. They’d divided up so that each group had one of the local hunters in it, and while they drove, the rest spent the time shuffling and redistributing supplies and equipment from the middle to the edges of the trams, giving them all more space to move. Always keeping one eye on the jungle for danger.

They made good time. They managed to travel a significant distance in the six hours before nightfall.

Finally, Darvish called a halt for the night, and they set up camp.

Unlike the safari they’d been on in the north, here, they didn’t waste time hunting or starting a fire. Erik presided over a self-contained grill and heated up small packaged steaks and vegetables from their supplies.

They weren’t on a safari, but a rescue mission.

Darvish and the Brothers circled the trams and pulled out two large canvases, weaving one onto the base of each of the trams and pulling it tight, forming a floor, and draping the other canvas over two bent flexible poles that were braced in brackets on opposite trams.

When they were done they had a large open sided tent, the floor suspended above the root and insect infested ground and covered from the weather. The trams formed a walkable perimeter for the guards.

Once dinner was over and cleared away, supplies restowed, Erik’s group were more than happy to roll onto the trampoline-like floor of the tent and go to sleep.

The Doctor bounced his way happily over the resilient floor, knees bomping high with each step, until Amy yanked him down in embarrassment. She and Rory were in the center of the canvas, where it dipped the most.

“You’re acting like a child!” Amy hissed at the Doctor, feeling Erik’s sleepy, annoyed gaze on her from the outer edge of the canvas floor.

“This is ingenious!” the Doctor said enthusiastically, allowing himself to be pulled down. He looked around cheerfully at the trams, abutting each other at the corners, the tension keeping the canvases tight.

“This is night,” Rory said with weary resignation. “Are you going to sleep? Or just keep everyone awake?” he said with his infrequent, but effective, snark. He lay in the center of the resilient floor, one arm for a pillow, glaring at the Doctor.

“Yeah, yeah,” the Doctor said at that repressive look. “I think I’ll sleep for a bit.” He turned around and plopped down, his back to Amy, his arm crooked under his ear.

Amy sighed with relief and cuddled into Rory.

The guards, checking that everyone was settled, turned down the lanterns hanging from the poles, to better preserve their night vision.

Night birds chirped. Insects churred sleepily.

“Good night, Amy,” the Doctor said.

“Good night, Doctor,” Amy replied.

“Good night, Rory,” the Doctor said.

“Good night, Doctor,” Rory replied.

“Good night, Bill,” the Doctor called.

Amy winced.

“Good night, Doctor,” Bill called back cheerfully, from their other side. Amy could feel the floor bouncing slightly as she laughed silently.

“Good night, Jute.”

“Good night, Darvish.”

“Good night, Eldon.”

“Good night, Erik...”

“ _GOOD NIGHT_ , DOCTOR!” everyone yelled in unison.

The Doctor hummed happily and snuggled down.

Amy hid her face in Rory’s shoulder and laughed.

—————

The moon coasted softly across the sky, blue-tinged shadows slid across the forest floor. The night breeze sighed through the trees, lightly ruffling the tent roof. The guards paced, keeping a calm eye out.

They woke their replacements, careful not to wake the rest, and switched places.

The night passed.

—————

Amy woke to find a leopard-skin face staring into hers.

“AAAH!” she screamed and flailed out, the creature jumped backward, landing on the edge of one of the trams. Rory grunted awake beside her as she hyperventilated. The guards snapped around to stare, guns raised.

Bill started laughing.

The leopard-skin creature sat on the edge of the tram and stared at Amy with wide eyes. It was a trelwee. A baby one, no bigger than her forearm. Unlike the Trelwins and Trelwees in the north, this one was a dusky gold color with small black spots, like a leopard.

Nelda swung down under the roof canvas on one long arm and batted at the creature, shooing it out into the forest. Amy fell back onto the canvas and threw a hand over her eyes, still breathing fast. The guards all laughed.

Rory looked down at her with concern, “You okay?”

She pulled her arm down and scowled up at him, still breathing fast. “It was _right_ in my _face_!” she said.

The Doctor grinned and bumped down into a crosslegged sitting position beside them, setting the trampoline floor bouncing. He patted her on the shoulder. “It would have startled anyone,” he said. But he didn’t stop grinning.

Jute grinned and tossed her a canteen, “I think she startled it more.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah!” she grumbled at all the goodnatured laughter around her. Everyone was awake now.

The morning was slightly cool, but pleasant, the morning sun slanted in under the canopy through the trees. Everyone shuffled around and hopped down, taking care of morning business.

Darvish passed out jerky and pemmican bricks for breakfast, checking on each member of the teams.

Amy gnawed on her pemmican, it was tough as a hockey puck, but surprisingly tasty, a travel food made of grains, dried berries and dried meat, (she didn’t ask what kind). The Doctor was apparently enjoying his, from the way he was bouncing around from side to side as he chewed.

Breakfast over, everyone helped unlace and stow the canvases, rev up the trams and checked weapons. They set out.

It wasn’t long before they were floating out over a giant swamp. Large water lilies, some big enough to walk on, some as tiny as coins, dotted the water in a colorful blanket, large bucketsized flowers with tiny frogs in them dotted the conglomeration of lilies.

(She knew about the frogs because one of the trams had brushed against a flower and it had erupted with a cloud of dozens of tiny startled frogs. The Doctor had been so delighted, he started sonicing passing flowers just to see the frogs burst out, until Erik stopped him.)

Amy shook her head as she watched Erik stuffing the Doctor’s sonic back in his pocket.

Her legs were draped over the side of the tram, George was driving, Bill standing guard behind her, weapon held at the ready. Rory was off in the next tram a little in front of them and to the right. He was driving, listening to instructions from one of the twins.

“Why a swamp?” Amy asked. She’d noticed that the swamp looked almost artificial. It was huge and wide and wild, but seemed to be about the same width as far as she could see, curving away in the distance.

Bill answered, “We think it was formed when the tree died,” she answered, nodding an acknowledgment to one of the guards in one of the other trams as her eyes kept scanning for danger. “Without the tree siphoning off the water, the natural water table collapsed, forming this swamp.”

Amy twisted and looked up at her. “It comes in handy,” Bill said, shrugging. “It forms a natural moat that helps keep a lot of the bigger animals away from the tree.”

“So it goes all the way around the tree?” Amy asked, shading her eyes against the sun.

Bill nodded.

“How do you know so much about it?” Amy asked.

Bill grinned down, that huge Valkyrie grin. “I spent a lot of time around here as a child. Got family here. This is where I learned I wanted to work safaris. Be out in the jungle, not just cooped up in a tree all my life.”

Amy could see that. The woman’s huge muscular arms gleamed in the sunlight. Gun held casually under one arm, eyes bright and alert.

Amy grinned and looked back out over the swamp. It was beautiful, morning sunlight gleaming off the water, iridescent dragonfly-like insects buzzing from ripple to ripple, tall, elegant white birds stepping delicately from lilly pad to lily pad, occasionally dunking to grab a bright scaled fish.

She looked down at the water right next to the tram, and froze.

Two bulging, human looking eyes were staring up at her out of the water. Eyes just above the water’s surface, attached to a long, scaly, loglike body floating just beneath the surface. Her mouth went completely dry. The tram was only skimming two feet above the water. That long, alligator like body had to be fourteen feet long.

It watched her calmly. The eyes may have looked human, but the expression was pure flat reptile.

Very slowly, Amy pulled her feet up. The tram floated on by, those eyes casually following it. Amy gulped and started breathing again.

She swung her feet inside, scootching farther into the center to sit on the supply crates lining the edges of the tram. Bill had her gun trained on the idly swishing barklike tail that slowly propelled the alligator under their tram and away. “I told you to keep your feet inside,” she remarked without heat.

Amy squeaked and cleared her throat. “You didn’t say there were alligators!”

Bill gave her a disbelieving look. “It _is_ a swamp.”

“Don’t worry,” George said from the steering bar, silently bouncing with laughter. He turned and grinned at her. “They only eat skinny, long-legged water birds.”

Amy glared at him. “Gee, _thanks_!”

—————

Darvish waved them all together in the center of the swamp. All the trams gathered around, the main current of the swamp flowed by underneath them, the main river channel, but the trams stayed in place.

Darvish raised his voice. “From here on we’re going to be taking the water routes!” he yelled to be heard over the water and wind. He pointed. Amy turned to see a break in the foliage, west of them, on the far edge of the swamp, where a river or stream exited.

“We’ll make better time, and won’t have to wait for the lasers to recharge. The stream takes us most of the way to the zone before it branches off. Keep together, but don’t crowd, the overhead should be light enough to not cause us any trouble.

“I want a laser fore and aft. Pointing outwards. With luck, this will shave us half a day off our travel time. We’re going into unfamiliar territory, so keep your eyes open. We’re relying on maps, and you all know how reliable that is.”

The hunters on both teams looked at each other and laughed.

Darvish grinned. He waved them down. “Pull out the recorders,” he said, nodding to each tram. “We may as well get as much data as we can while they’re still useful. Catalog anything you can identify as we pass, especially anything useful. Standard drill for new territory.”

The hunters absently nodded as they dug out recording and surveying equipment.

“I’ll go first,” Darvish pointed down to his own tram, with Pickles and Jute. “Then you, Erik,” he pointed to Erik’s tram, with the Doctor and Eldon, “Then George,” George and Amy and Bill’s tram, “Then Garon,” Garon and Rory and Eula.

“Anybody shout out if you see a snag or a problem. Let’s go.” He tapped Pickles on the shoulder and the quartermaster moved them smoothly out in front. The rest jockeyed for position and trailed after him.

Amy wished she’d brought a hat, the sun was getting fierce.

—————

Recorders were attached to the edges of the trams on each side, recording their passage as they slid into the river inlet and proceeded farther into the continent. Bill had on a headset, and would occasionally record notes as she recognized things, or tagged others for further examination.

The jungle was thick on both sides. The river was deep, going by the current, but not all that wide. Twenty or thirty feet across. Fortunately, the trees provided shade, but didn’t actually block out the sun, and they weren’t low enough for creepers or vines to be a problem.

It was actually sort of nice. It was warm, but a cool breeze kept the temperature at a comfortable level. It was almost quiet, in that “all the animals making noise, but not being noisy about it” way.

“I can see why you chose this life,” Amy said, looking up at Bill. The huntress looked down at her and grinned, then stopped and froze. She stared into the water, her gun pointing but otherwise still as a statue.

Her hand raised slowly to her ear and flipped the com channel on her headset. “Water snake,” she said softly into the mike.

Amy whipped around to look where she was staring. Her eyes went huge.

Below them, undulating through the clear green water, was a humongous snake. Its head was the size of a car, its body eight feet thick, she couldn’t see the end of it. If she’d been swimming, she could have swum right down this thing’s gullet and not even caused a bulge.

Her heart pattered fast and light, almost strangling her and leaving her light headed. Her head swiveled to follow it, hypnotized with fear.

It swam right under them, unconcerned, calm and indifferent. Its black hide rippling, distorted by the water. One black eye glinting as the huge flat head passed below them.

Everyone stared. No one moved. All four trams kept their speed. No one made any sudden motion, no one wanted to draw its attention. All the guns slowly tracked it as they all froze like mice.

“Fascinating.” Almost all of them. The Doctor leaned out over the edge of the tram. His shadow fell across the snake’s head as it passed beneath them. It glided along, the Doctor’s eyes absorbing the beauty of the ancient predator. He pulled out his sonic absentmindedly.

Erik saw and grabbed him by the coat tail to jerk him back. The Doctor fumbled, and accidentally blipped the sonic on.

The water exploded. Twenty feet of enraged serpent reared up over the boat. The tram tilted, bouncing off a coil, the Doctor fell backward, knocking into Erik, Erik’s gun, which he’d been aiming at the snake’s head, flew out of his hands and fell into the water.

“Doctor!” Amy screamed. The lead tram swiveled, trying to bring their laser to bear. The water frothed, knocking the trams around, spoiling everyone’s aim as the hunters stumbled and grabbed to right themselves. Rory’s tram was too far back to use its laser.

Eldon struggled to control Erik’s tram, prevent it from capsizing, and trying to speed away. The snake struck. The Doctor rolled, pushing Erik the other direction. The snake’s snout hit the floor, bouncing the tram in the water. The snake reared back with a hissing scream and glared, one black eye locked on the Doctor.

It struck again. Huge, meter long fangs, sprang out. The Doctor shot his hand up into the open mouth. The sonic shrieked as he jammed it into the huge forked tongue.

The snake screamed and lashed back, mouth snapping closed. The Doctor barely missing losing his hand.

The snake thrashed its head. Darvish finally got his tram’s laser to bear and ran a gash along the snake’s flank. The snake slammed back into the water. Gunfire followed it as it powered away. The hunters having finally gotten their balance.

“What the hell were you doing!” Erik’s roar could be heard over the yelling as everyone checked to be sure everyone was all right.

“I wasn’t going to use it. You grabbed me!” the Doctor protested.

Amy watched as Erik confiscated the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver, and shoved it into his own pocket. “That was my best gun,” Erik said in a slightly lower voice. It was easier to hear him by then. They’d maneuvered the trams all together in a flotilla. Everyone’s guns were pointing outward. Hyperaware and vigilant.

Amy glanced over at Rory in the next tram. He shrugged back, looking angry but worried.

The Doctor hunched his shoulders under the combined glares.

—————

Despite reservations, they kept to the river. Everyone was nervy, and on edge, but kept to the job. Amy found herself checking on all the others, making sure everyone was there and awake. She was surprised none of them had flaked out during the snake attack. It had seemed like the sort of thing that would trigger the “monster.”

She sighed in relief to see everyone was fine. But it took a long time before they relaxed enough to stretch the trams back out.

Lunch passed with more pemmican bars handed around. Rory learned how to use the survey cameras. The Doctor stayed sitting in his “time out” corner of his tram, unusually subdued, but allowing everyone to relax and forget his faux pas.

Finally, toward evening, Darvish waved them all to shore as the river turned east, and they took to land again. For a day spent doing nothing but sitting in a boat, Amy was unusually tired.

They made camp at the first glade they found, once far enough inland to feel safe from water snakes. The Trelwin rejoined them at the end of dinner. Dropping down into the camp like big, tricolored flies.

“Oh my god!” Amy exclaimed, sitting suddenly straight up. “I forgot all about them! How did they get here?” she asked.

The Doctor, beside her, still a bit subdued, set his tin plate aside and stood up. “They had their own way across the swamp.” He shrugged and looked down at her and Rory. “Arboreal creatures. Sometimes it’s faster to travel through the trees.” He shrugged again. “Zeke indicated they didn’t want to go on the trams with the alligators around.”

He scuffed a boot in the dirt, then went and scooped up three pemmican bars and joined the Trelwins.

“Is he going to be okay?” Rory asked worriedly, as he saw the subdued Doctor start hand speaking to the Trelwins as they ate.

“Yeah,” Amy said. She leaned into Rory’s shoulder. “He doesn’t like getting people almost killed. He’ll be okay.”

—————

A little after noon the next day the trams died. Amy hung on in surprise as the mine cart slowly drifted to the ground and landed with a thump. Bill tapped her headset, then took it off with a headshake.

All around them the other trams settled, and everyone piled out. They looked around, feeling a little disoriented. None of the electronics worked.

Darvish waved for everyone’s attention. He pulled out his huge, double-bladed ax. Amy hadn’t seen it off his back since they’d started out.

“We walk from here!” he yelled out. “Grab your gear. We’ve reached the Zone.”

 

—————

Are you enjoying the story? Please leave a comment.

 


	23. Chapter 23

The forest was tall here, the understory mostly clear, with some ferns, and a few huge boulders scattered around. They’d been making good time. Amy wasn’t looking forward to more walking, but at least they were going well prepared.

Eula handed her a backpack. “Thanks,” she took it without looking and stared up at the trees, they looked a bit like short redwoods. Comparatively short that is. Any of the big “home” trees on this planet would dwarf them. But they were straight, and tall, and had that rough reddish bark.

Suddenly she frowned and looked around. She turned to Rory as he staggered over, adjusting the weight of his pack. “Why do I feel like we’re in the forest of Endor?”

Rory looked up and looked around and laughed. “Yeah, it does look like it, a bit.”

“No speeders though,” Amy sighed looking at the downed tram. Bill was pulling out the last of their supplies, piling them on the ground to be distributed. Amy heaved up her backpack and went to pull it on.

She stared down in consternation. It didn’t have any straps. It was just the pack, with a couple of clips at the top and bottom. “How am I supposed to wear this?”

Eula looked up from where he was helping Bill stack supplies. He grinned. “Here,” he held out a hand and she passed him the pack. “They’re designed to clip onto the chute harness,” he explained. Going behind her and clipping the backpack to her shoulders.

He stepped back, and she shrugged. The pack had been heavy, she hadn’t looked forward to lugging it around. But with the weight distributed across her chute harness it was a lot lighter and more comfortable.

“How do I take it off?” she asked, no straps meant no shrugging it off, and her harness was integrated into her clothing, she didn’t fancy taking her shirt off just to get at her pack.

Eula thrust both arms out in front of him. “Like you’re deploying your chute,” he explained.

She copied him, dubiously, and the pack neatly dropped off. She turned and stared down at it. He laughed.

—————

While the others sorted through the supplies, Darvish headed back in the direction they’d come from.

The Doctor trotted after him. The safari leader stopped and waved his compass around, strode a few feet farther and tried again.

The Doctor sidled up and looked over the shorter man's broad shoulder to see the compass lazily spinning in a circle. His eyebrows jumped up.

“Can you turn that upside down?” he asked.

Darvish looked at him with a confused frown, but turned the compass over. The Doctor squatted down and looked up at the face. Unlike a clock, which would have kept spinning in the same direction, the compass had reversed, maintaining its bearing. “Fascinating.”

“What is?” Darvish asked, turning the compass back over and looked at it. It wobbled to a stop, reversed, and started turning again.

“Magnetic instability, we knew that,” Darvish said. He shrugged. He walked a few meters farther and checked again.

“Nice compass,” the Doctor said. “Antique?”

Darvish rubbed a long thumb over the gold etched pocketwatch case. “Yes, my great-grandfather gave it to me. He got it from his ancestor. Most compasses are electronic now, they just stop working here.”

The Doctor nodded, quiff bobbing. He looked back and noticed they were just beyond the point where the trams had first lost power.

He looked down in time to see the compass had settled, neatly pointing north/south.

Darvish spread out the map on the ground, anchoring it with one foot as he oriented to the compass. His quick eyes measured the direction of the trams, checking the locations on the map.

The Doctor watched his eyes flick over the head of the forest as he picked out landmarks. Darvish checked the map again, then rolled it up.

“So what’s fascinating?” he asked, still crouched, looking up at the Doctor.

The Doctor grinned, “Watch your compass as we re-enter the Zone.”

Darvish gave him a dubious look, but flicked open his compass again and held it out in front of himself as they returned to the others.

As soon as they hit the Zone, the compass disc started swirling in a circle in the water.

Darvish stopped, shook the compass. It didn’t jump back and forth, but settled neatly into the same, steady, directional whirl.

The Doctor tapped the compass. “That’s not random. The Zone’s a magnetic vortex.”

—————

Amy, Rory, Bill, and Eula piled the non-functioning electronics, the survey cameras and lasers and extra supplies back into one of the trams. They’d only be taking what essentials they could carry.

On the other side of them, Erik, Pickles, Eldon, and Garon heaved and tipped one of the empty trams up onto its side, then toppled it slowly over, lowering it to the ground, upside down.

“Alright, everyone give us a hand!” Erik barked out. Jute and George stood guard at the edges of the clearing, watching outward, even in this peaceful glade. The rest of the group gathered around the overturned tram.

“Grab an edge,” Erik instructed. Amy and Rory, mystified, grabbed one rounded-off edge, with Eula and Bill on either side of them. “On the count of three, lift,” Erik ordered.

They all heaved, picking up the upside down tram. It was surprisingly light with all of them helping. With some stumbles and missteps, they followed directions and slowly walked it sideways, lifted it high, and settled it onto the top of the filled tram.

Erik and Pickles darted around and buckled down the edges, forming a protective clamshell for their supplies. Bill dusted her hands off and gave a satisfied nod.

Pickles and Eula started sorting through the remaining supplies, handing out necessities, piling the non-essentials into the remaining tram.

Pickles tossed Darvish a backpack and an old fashioned pair of binoculars. Eula twirled a finger at the Doctor, who promptly spun completely in place, earning a laugh, before Eula grabbed his shoulders and stopped him, clipping his pack onto his harness clips.

The Doctor shrugged his shoulders and tugged at his harness to settle things comfortably. Rory looked up at the sky that showed through the tall trees. He shaded his eyes, the sun was just past its zenith.

He looped his canteen over his shoulder, gave it a shake to check its content. It was full, and reassuringly heavy. He unclipped his machete from his belt and weighted it in his hand.

Eula looped a canteen around the Doctor’s neck, and clipped a bottle of bug spray onto his belt. The Doctor forbearingly stood there grinning, allowing himself to be kitted out like a lifesize doll.

Pickles went around, checking each person, ensuring each was carrying the necessities. Food, water, bugspray, weapons, ammunition, camping supplies and sundries in the packs; and supplying whatever was lacking.

Finally he and Eula nodded to each other and Erik yelled everyone over to help seal the last of the supplies between the two remaining trams.

The trams clicked neatly together. Amy and Rory stood back and stared at the two neat, white, square clamshells that housed all their supplies. Sitting incongruously side by side, looking completely out of place in this ferny forest setting.

“That should, hopefully, keep anything out until we come back for them,” Eldon said, wiping his hands on his khaki covered thighs.

“Assuming we do come back,” Garon said, unlimbering his large bore rifle and chambering a round. “Only two people have ever made it out of here alive.”

“You _would_ have to remind us of that,” Eldon said as he walked by and smacked his twin on the back of the head.

All the hunters started inspecting their weapons.

Amy and Rory gathered around the Doctor. “What do you think _is_ in there?” Amy asked, peering into the forest before them. Rory looked worried beside her.

“I have absolutely no idea,” the Doctor said, staring pensively with them.

“But,” he clapped his hands, startling them, and lifted a triumphant finger, “this time we’re prepared!” He handed each of them an ipod. He darted through the crowd and started handing out ipods from his copious pockets, like a magician.

“Keep the earpieces in your ears at all times,” he instructed. “It won’t interfere with your hearing, but it should block any attempt by the ‘monster’ to stop us.”

He handed the last ipod to Erik. Erik scowled at him, but looped the cord over his neck and inserted the earpieces. “You sure these will work?” he asked gruffly.

The Doctor bounced. “They’ve worked on everyone so far.”

Erik nodded.

Rory watched as Amy tapped her earpods into her ears, and nodded. She shrugged her shoulders. Food satchel looped around one side, canteen on the other and ipod in front, “We’re all going to end up with chaffed necks,” she said.

“Also,” the Doctor said loudly, holding up his finger again to gain everyone’s attention, “Everybody should have a life support unit. Clip yours on your belt or on your front somewhere, if we need them, we’ll need them fast.”

Several backpacks clicked off and fell with a thump as people rummaged in their supplies for their medical kits. Triangular life support units were clipped on belts and jackets, each person checking their own to make sure it was in working order. No one wanted to be the one who relied on a dud life support unit.

Rory frowned, then sidled up to the Doctor. He leaned closer, voice low. “What about you, Doctor?” Rory looked at him worriedly. “These are all calibrated for a single heart, like humans or Trelwins have.”

The Doctor smiled at him. He patted his life support unit on his belt under his jacket. He lifted it to show Rory. “I calibrated one for me, just in case.” He tapped the circular Gallifreyan symbol drawn on one corner of the triangular casing. He suddenly frowned in thought. “Don’t let anyone else use it,” he instructed, worried.

Rory nodded. “I’ll let the others know.”

The Doctor grinned at him and clapped him on the shoulder.

Darvish waved his ax, Erik unshouldered his spare gun, and the two leaders gathered everyone’s attention. They looked around and caught everyone's eye, one by one.

“Right,” Erik said. “Let’s go.”

The light slanted through the trees, just after noon. Dust motes danced.

They all moved out silently. Leaving the trams behind.

The Trelwins all swarmed up the nearest tree, heading for the high ground.

—————

The forest wasn’t exactly light and airy, but it was far less cluttered than the jungles they’d been traveling through. With the high trees, and ferny undergrowth, it gave the impression of a state park. More of the ground here was clear, more sunlight got through, although it was more of a bright twilight than direct sun.

The Trelwins brachiated along above them, swinging from branch to branch in the high understory. They all spread out, traveling in a loose cluster where they could all see each other, and stayed mostly together, but could cover more ground with their eyes, looking for anything that might tell them where the shuttle had crashed, or if there’d been any survivors.

Not to mention any clue as to what the monster was.

A couple of hours in, Darvish climbed one of the huge boulders that littered the area, shielding his eyes, scanning ahead.

A stray sunbeam spotlighted his short, broad shouldered form, the ax strapped across his back, giant trees and mossy boulders around him, dust motes dancing like fairy lights. All he lacked was a beard to complete the ‘Dwarf Lord” image, Amy thought, as she grinned at the imagery.

He called something down to Erik, who turned and looked where he pointed, with his binoculars. He nodded and they subtly led the group off in another direction. Darvish expertly slid down the boulder on his rump and landed on his feet.

They walked for hours along hardpacked ground, through cool ferns, they didn’t see much in the way of animal life. Just a few small lizards in the brush. One of those puffy animals jumped out of a clump of bushes, wailed at the Doctor, and bolted away. Making everyone laugh.

The air hung still, the forest smelled of dust and mulch, and an underlying freshness that Amy could only identify as the breath of the trees.

It was strangely peaceful, almost churchlike.

—————

“ _Flower Hair!_ ”

Amy jerked out of a meditative doze. Who had called her that? She glared around, shaking off a feeling of disorientation. She was surprised to find she’d almost walked facefirst into a sharp tangle of downed branches.

She diverted around them, and looked around at the others. They all seemed to be in a similar dozy state. None of them were looking at her.

She sidled up to the Doctor. He was avidly looking around, hands in his pockets, cataloging everything he saw with a faint smile on his face.

“Doctor?” He turned to look at her. She nodded at the others. Erik and Darvish seemed to be less effected, but the Brothers, Bill and Jute and Eula seemed to be strolling along without a care in the world. Weapons were held at the ready, but not alertly, they all seemed very peaceful, almost distracted.

“What’s going on?” Amy whispered.

The Doctor looked calmly around at the others. “It’s the Zone,” he said. “A magnetic vortex can alter brainwaves, increase the Alpha and Theta brainwaves, cause a meditative state. They’re fine. They’re not asleep, just peaceful.” He shrugged.

“What if we’re attacked?” she asked. She noted Rory walking along on the right flank in front of them, machete held casually, he seemed alert, but unfussed. She couldn’t tell if he was actually affected.

“They’re still aware,” the Doctor said, nodding a negligent head at the others. “If we were attacked they’d snap out of it fast enough.” He grinned wryly. “Meanwhile, it’s a nice day for a stroll.” He cocked out an elbow to her.

She grinned and tucked her hand into it.

“Did you just call me Flower Hair?” she suddenly asked, frowning at him.

His sparse eyebrows popped up, then his dimple flashed in a grin. “Flower Hair? No.” He laughed. “But I might from now on.” He tweaked a lock of her red hair. She poked him in the ribs.

—————

They didn’t find much the first day, and spent the night in hammocks strung from the trees. It was the best night’s sleep Amy had ever had.

Early the next morning, Erik yelled and they all rushed forward to see what he’d found. It was a twisted bit of shuttle material, not much bigger than his hand, possibly thrown off during the crash.

They all spread out to look for the crash lane. The Doctor signed up to Nelda for the Trelwins to help look.

Half of them kept their eyes on the treetops, looking for damage, while the rest kept their eyes on the area around them, wary for danger.

It wasn’t until she looked down that Amy noticed an incongruity among the trees. As she walked by, the space between the trees didn’t shift like it should. She stopped.

Bill walked up beside her, large gun cradled across huge arms. “What’s wrong?”

Amy nodded her head toward the trees on the side of the clear area they were traversing, frowning, still trying to figure out what was going on.

Bill looked up. The entire background of the trees moved. Amy’s eyes went wide.

Bill smiled, “It’s a Herbivore.”

Amy turned and gave her a puzzled glare. It was some sort of optical illusion was what it was. How could the whole forest move?

Then it moved again, and suddenly Amy realized she wasn’t focusing large enough.

It looked like a cross between a buffalo, and a house. It roved behind the trees. Eighteen feet tall at the withers. Covered in mottled brown and green suede that blended into the forest.

It wasn’t moving very fast, as if it wasn’t in a hurry, and had no reason to be.

Amy stumbled back several paces, just trying to get the whole thing into her field of vision. Jute caught her as she stumbled over a branch. “Careful, miss.”

Rory trotted up, his eyes stuck on the walking illusion behind the trees. He grabbed Amy’s arm, part in support, part in surprise.

The Doctor gallumped up and stood beaming, wringing his hands in excitement, practically squeaking with joy. He waved a hand out at it and turned a wide, awestruck eyes at them, as if they hadn't seen it too.

‘It’s a Forest Herbivore,” Bill explained for the “biologists’” benefit. “They’re smaller than the plains ones.”

“Smaller?!” Amy squeaked.

The vision walked slowly along behind the trees, the optical illusion of its passing creating a ripple effect as its hide passed from tree to tree. It was amazingly silent for such a huge and obviously heavy creature.

“We just walked right past it!” Amy yelped.

Jute nodded, shouldering his rifle. “They’re not dangerous,” he said in his slow, laconic voice. “As long as you stay out of their way.”

As punctuation, there was a thunderous ripping noise as the Herbivore casually tore a large limb off one of the redwood trees and slowly started masticating.

It sounded like someone chewing a tree. Appropriately enough.

The Doctor’s eyes were sparkling so bright Amy expected him to explode.

_Mad Birds!_

Amy winced. Who was yelling at her? She glared around at the other hunters, suspiciously. Something bumped on her head, distracting her, a twig, with leaves attached, twirled down in front of her. She looked up.

Nelda stood in the canopy far overhead. Long white arms waving, bouncing up and down. When she had Amy’s attention, she pointed. Amy turned to look behind her.

A black cloud boiled through the trees. Amy grabbed the Doctor’s arm. “Look!”

The sound hit them, like a shockwave, the frantic “fwumping” of thousands of wings, the raucous chatter and screams of a solid mass of birds.

“Get down!” the Doctor yelled. He yanked Amy and Rory down and covered their heads with his arms. The cloud broke over them in a wave, small hard bodies pelted them, the slicing flap of frantic wings, the grasp of claws, the sting of beaks.

The hunters shouted and yelled, Amy looked out from under the Doctor’s arms and saw them scrambling around, trying to take shelter, raising their guns and realizing it would be futile to fire. Birds whirled and dove and rose and shrieked all around them, with no direction, total chaos. Bodies thumped and pelted them like overlarge sand, wings batted at them, claws tangled in hair. One of her earbuds slipped out and Amy fumbled frantically to reinsert it.

“What’s wrong with them?” Rory yelled over the cacophony. The bird’s weren’t attacking, there was no coordination to them, they collided with each other in midair, haring off in every direction, completely random. The hunters just happened to be in the way.

The Doctor squeezed their shoulders, one palm pushing Amy’s head down as another wave barraged them. “They’re scared!” he yelled.

“What of?” Rory yelled, craning his head up to look for some huge bird or other predator attacking. But all he could see was a shifting pattern of black.

Suddenly the ground jumped with a huge thump. A horrible, deep, reverberating cry, shook the trees.

“Look out!” Jute yelled. “Get out of the way!”

Behind them the lumbering behemoth of the herbivore shook its head as a wave of birds flew into its eyes, boiled around it, slapping it with panicked wings, like a swarm of bees.

“ _Move!_ ” Bill bellowed, and practically swept them all up in a running tackle.

The herbivore stamped and staggered, and broke into a lumbering, ground-shaking run, shouldering trees out of its path. Straight for them.

Hunters swiped at birds and ran sideways, stumbling on the heaving ground.

“Don’t shoot!” Darvish bellowed over the cacophony, barely heard.

Amy scrambled, she sprinted up and looked behind her, up. into a face as big as a movie theater screen. An oddly gentle looking face, but filled with pure dumb animal panic.

She weaved to the side, shoving the Doctor ahead of her. She barely missed being squashed by a huge, blunt-footed leg that stomped by her, the size of a tree itself. The herbivore galloped past like a dinosaur, massive muscles rolling under thick suede, each step heaving the ground.

She fell and rolled, and stared up in disbelief, dust choked the air, bird screams receded as the birds scattered in the wake of the giant mammal.

Three galloping strides took the gigantic browser across the clearing and trees tore like vines as it continued, unimpeded, through the forest on the other side.

She lay there panting. Dirt in her eyes. Grimacing at the bird droppings on her jacket. She ran a hand cautiously through her hair.

“What the hell was that?” George’s yell echoed across the suddenly silent clearing. The hunters stumbled to their feet, grimacing at the churned ground, spattered with bird droppings. Feathery corpses who’d not survived midair collisions littered the ground, and giant footprints shoved up cracking hardpacked divots, their edges jutting like broken concrete.

A large limb tumbled off one of the shattered trees, landing with a crash, causing two of the Brothers to jump back with a curse.

“Everyone all right?” Darvish yelled, as they all instinctively took stock. “Sound off!”

“Fine!”

“Fine!”

They all yelled, one by one. Amy looked up into the trees searching for the Trelwins. Nelda, Zeke, and Chitchi were clinging to narrow sections of the high boles, looking shaken, but okay.

“Good thing they weren’t bats,” the Doctor said, shaking out his hair. Brushing away twigs and leaves.

Amy grimaced down at her jacket. “Eww! Bad enough.” She pulled her jacket away, looking in disgust at the white splatter mark.

“Here,” Bill threw a handful of dirt on the messy stain and rubbed it in. “Give that a few minutes, then brush it off.”

Amy looked up at her, grimacing again. “Thanks.”

“What caused that?” Rory asked again, kneeling to scoop up a handful of dirt to apply to his own stains. He looked up at the Doctor. “Is something trying to drive us off?”

That sent a frisson through the group. They all looked at each other uncomfortably. Eula joined them, and dabbed antiseptic on a variety of cuts and scratches, from his medical kit. They all looked at the Doctor.

“That?” the Doctor said, waving in dismissal. “Nah, they were startled by something, or they probably blundered into the zone then panicked when the magnetic field messed up their sense of direction,” he said, not very convincingly. “They’ll either blunder out again, or settle down here and adapt. Ouch!” He hissed as Eula dabbed antiseptic on a scratch on his cheek.

“Best to be careful,” Eula said, spraying a bit of sealant on the cut then moving on to the others.

Erik stalked up, beyond him, Darvish went to check on the rest of the group on the other side of the clearing. “You lot all right?” Erik asked in his booming voice, his eyes quickly flicked assessingly over the Doctor.

The Doctor bristled. “I’d be better if I had my sonic screwdriver.”

Erik ignored him. Pointedly.

“Over here!” George suddenly yelled from the far side of the clearing. They all turned to find the Brother holding up something black.

At first Amy thought it was another dead bird. They were a metallic black, about the size of a starling. But as everyone converged on him, she could see it was a piece of metal.

Darvish beat them to him, and George handed the twisted bit of shuttle to the Safari leader, then said something and gestured down the trampled path where the herbivore had charged through the trees. Farther in, sunlight broke through, where the tops of the trees had been sheared off.

—————

They followed the herbivore’s path and found the shuttle crash lane. The treetops had been decapitated high overhead, in a clearly delineated line, straight southeast, cutting across the herbivore’s path. It was a rat’s nest of damage, a tangle of downed branches and sheered boles. Severed treetops caught, suspended, against their neighbors, the whole line gradually getting lower.

They followed the crash lane for an hour, walking to the side, rather than under it, to avoid the debris.

Amy, Rory, and the Doctor picked their way around a huge downed branch full of spikey points that had been flung wide into the ferns.

“Why did you ask if something was trying to drive us off, Rory?” the Doctor asked abruptly, picking his way across spikey branches.

Rory looked back at him, careful where he placed his own feet. “It’s just this feeling I have. Like something’s watching me. It’s been getting stronger the farther we go in.”

Amy looked back. “Me too.” she said, waiting for them on the other side. Her hands went to her hips. “It’s like someone’s trying to talk to me, in the back of my head.”

“Yeah,” Rory said. “It’s creepy.”

Rory untangled his foot from the last branch, and looked up, right at a large, grey skinned tree that was completely twisted around on its bole. “And now we have twisty trees!” he said in disgust.

“It’s just the electromagnetic vortex here, changing the way they grow” the Doctor said, grinning and patting him on the shoulder as he stumbled his way out of the last of the ferns. “It’s getting stronger the farther in we go. Nothing to worry about.”

Amy and Rory both gave him dubious looks.

The forest started to become more jungle the farther in they went. Gnarled jungle trees, twisted on their boles, becoming interspersed with the larger redwoods. More undergrowth. They had to start using their machetes to hack a path through the ferns.

As the increasingly denser canopy deepened the air to twilight under the trees, they noticed something glimmering in the forest. Not the shine of metal, but a soft glow. Coming from a point ahead.

Darvish and Erik waved them all together. Silent, weapons out, they passed through the last line of trees into another clear area, the strange light gleaming off treetrunks behind them.

They stopped and stared.

A ghost hung in the air before them.

—————

It was ten feet tall, hanging several feet off the ground. A long, attenuated form, humanoid, indistinct, apparently wearing a long flowing tabard.

“Huh, there _are_ ghosts,” the Doctor muttered.

Erik glared at him.

It bobbed very slightly in the breeze, head down as if asleep. It made no sound, gave no shadow beyond the faint glow it emitted. It seemed to have no mass. Yet it was clearly there.

“Look,” Pickles gestured with his gun, quietly. They all looked where he was pointing, to see another ghost, twenty feet away.

“And there,” Eldon said, pointing his gun in the opposite direction. Another ghost, and beyond it, the glimmer of another.

A line of ghosts, faintly curving.

The Doctor plucked at his lip and studied them, eyes narrow.

“Trelwin have elves?” Rory asked, keeping his voice low.

The Doctor looked at him, startled, then looked back at the figure. The “ghosts” looked like vague, semi-transparent energy versions of the Trelwin. Except these Trelwin were elegant, upright, and wore clothes, like seeing an elvin or fairy version of the Trelwin.

The Doctor grinned like a madman. “Why not? Most thinking species have mythological creatures of some kind.”

“They’re almost beautiful,” Amy said. “But they are pretty blurry.”

George crept forward hesitantly and poked the barrel of his gun at the apparition.

The barrel touched it. The apparition screamed and leapt, flashing red, demonic eyes and teeth, sharp claws. Red lightning zapped down the barrel and exploded, throwing George backward into a tree with a crack like a gunshot. He was dead before he slithered to the ground.

“Don’t touch them!” the Doctor and Erik screamed.

“They’re energized!” the Doctor added, herding Amy and Rory behind him.

The entire ring of apparitions turned red and started advancing, converging on their location.

“This isn’t good, yeah?” Amy said.

“This isn’t good, no,” Rory replied, grabbing her arm and hauling her backward.

The air turned red with the advancing ghosts.

“ _Run!_ ” the Doctor yelled.


	24. Chapter 24

"What are these things?" Amy yelled as she ran. They dodged past trees, pushed through ferns. Her heart pounded in her ribs like a razor blade. Panic edged her vision.

She could see the others scattering out of the corner of her eye, being chased by floating red demons. There was yelling, the occasional crack of electricity, and burst of machine gun fire.

Get away, get away, get away. It's _behind_ you! Her body yelled at her, urging her on faster. The Doctor and Rory ran beside her, she could see the red light reflected on Rory's face as he looked behind them.

She ran faster.

"Some sort of energy creature," the Doctor said. She felt his hand on the small of her back, pushing her forward. She flinched and sprinted faster, lungs laboring, shock and adrenaline searing through her veins.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Bill attempt to hide by ducking between two boulders. Her ghost kept right after her. She scuttled out the other side on all fours. The ghost followed.

Darvish took a swipe at his with his war ax. The bolt of electricity blew him 20 feet across the jungle floor.

Others ran, or fought, or tried to hide, but the ghosts were relentless. Amy lost track of them as her eyesight narrowed on her own path, her own survival.

" _Twisted Trees!_ " a voice yelled in her head.

Above them the three Trelwins swung along in panic, trying to outrace the demonic apparitions. Zeke waved a long arm and disappeared into a trio of jungle trees.

"Follow Zeke!" the Doctor yelled over the drumming in Amy's ears. Her mouth tasted metallic. Her heart was pounding so hard it hurt.

The Doctor pushed them forward and she and Rory put on a desperate burst of speed. They ran, flat out for the trees, going so fast they had to circle around them to slow down. The Doctor grabbed her and Rory by the arms and practically threw them up into the conjoined boles as they whipped around the edge.

He jumped up into the joined boles after them, panting. They all stared, eyes wide, sweating, hearts pounding, the Trelwins reeking of tar as they clung to the insides of the boles above them.

The apparition curved around the bole, pursuing them, less than ten feet away, and kept going.

It swept on past the tree as if it didn't see it. The ghost's attention diverted and immediately latched onto a section of the mat of ferns, advancing. Jute popped up out of the grasses where he'd been hiding, and took off running, the apparition glided after him, silent, relentless, glowing red and humming like a live wire.

"That's interesting," the Doctor said, in an analytical tone.

" _What_ is going on!" Rory yelled, then stifled himself. "Why did that thing just go on by, and what are they?"

"Is that thing going to come back?" Amy asked. The hysterical edge to her voice had the Doctor whipping around to stare at her. Her eyes were dilated, her hands were shaking. He looked at Rory, Rory's eyes were dilated too, he was jittering, clearly still on an adrenaline surge.

The Doctor reached forward for Amy's face, she flinched back with a frantic look. "What are you doing?" She sounded scared. Amy was never scared.

"I just need to check something," he said softly. He gently laid his fingers against her temples. He looked in her eyes. Then drew back. "Thought so."

"What?" Rory asked, looking like he wanted to jump in front of her and protect her from him. The tar fear stink of the Trelwins washed down around them.

"Amy, give me your ipod," the Doctor held out his hand for her ipod, already digging in his jacket pocket with his other hand.

She handed it over, earpieces still attached to her ears. He pulled out a small leather case, and unzipped it to reveal a collection of tiny tools, like lockpicks.

"What about your sonic screwdriver?" Rory asked.

"Erik still has it," the Doctor said distractedly, popping open the back of the ipod with one of the tools.

"What are you doing?" Amy demanded nervously.

The Doctor looked up in her face, she was still juddering, she and Rory still on edge. "You're not just frightened, you're panicked," the Doctor said.

"We have _reason_ to be!" Rory almost yelled, he immediately looked outside, scanning for ghosts.

"It's not just normal fear," the Doctor said. "Those 'ghosts' are emitting enhanced beta brainwaves."

Rory glared at him. "They're _making_ us scared?"

The Doctor nodded, and started fiddling with the ipod. "I think we figured out why the only survivors of this place were considered mad. Beta brainwaves are just normal daily thinking brainwaves, a bit random and scattered, but normal. But enhance them enough and they cause panic and paranoia."

"Can you fix it?" Amy asked.

He grinned up at her. "Piece of cake. Just requires an adjustment in the frequency..." his voice faded off as he bit his tongue and concentrated on his task. "There!" He snapped the case shut and handed her ipod back to her. He reached out for Rory's.

"Why don't I feel more relaxed?" Amy demanded, in her more usual demanding tone.

The Doctor grinned at her to hear it, adjusting Rory's ipod. "They're not aiming it at you anymore, it takes a bit of time to come down." He snapped Rory's ipod closed and handed it back.

Rory tucked it in his belt. "So why did that thing stop following us?" he asked. They could still hear occasional screams and zaps in the distance.

The Trelwins crawled down closer to them, the fug of tar stink starting to waft away in the breeze.

"The trees," the Doctor said, patting the sleek gray bark behind him.

"Huh?" Amy stared up and around at the twisted boles rising around them. Three smooth barked jungle trees, all rising from the same root, all twisting on their boles.

"The trees are twisted because they're sitting on a microvortex, that's how you can find them. I'm assuming the added electromagnetic interference is shielding us from the ghost's perception somehow."

"How did you know?" Rory asked.

The Doctor pointed up. "Zeke."

Amy and Rory looked up at the three Trelwin clutching upside down to the boles above them.

" _If the monster's minions find you, find a twisty tree,_ " the Doctor quoted. It sounded like part of their legend.

"They _have_ been talking to us!" Amy declared.

"Yep!" The Doctor grinned and rubbed his hands in glee.

"How is that possible?" Rory asked. "I thought Trelwin were mute."

"They are," the Doctor said, tilting his head to look out between the boles, keeping a watch out for ghosts or other monsters.

"Then how..."

The Doctor whirled a finger at the air. The leaves rustled in the trees, punctuating the sudden silence beyond them. "The vortex again. It naturally increases Alpha and Theta brainwaves, increasing a meditative state. A side effect of that can be telepathy."

"But I thought you just said we were panicked because of _beta_ brainwaves. That's hardly meditative," Rory complained.

"No, that was something aimed at us by the ghosts. Which I don't think are ghosts at all," the Doctor said in an affronted tone.

"Then what are they?" Amy asked, sitting down on a burl on her bole and crossing her arms.

"Guards," the Doctor said. "Or sentinels. You saw the way they were lined up, like an electric fence."

"A fence that _attacks_ people," Rory snorted.

"What better way to keep people out?" The Doctor rubbed his hands. "And there's nothing more interesting than something saying, 'Keep Out.'"

Amy groaned.

"You think there's something in there?" Rory asked.

The Doctor shrugged. "Why else guard it? Besides, that's where the crash lane ends. We have to get in there, if only to see if there are survivors."

Amy rubbed her face. "And I suppose we have to do that now, while the 'guards,' she made parenthesis with her fingers, "are out chasing the others."

The Doctor nodded.

"What about our friends?" Rory asked, jerking a thumb upward at the Trelwin.

"They'll come with us. Whatever is going on in this Zone is their problem even more than ours," the Doctor reminded them.

"You and Rory go," Amy said. She turned and looked out at the disturbingly quiet forest. Either the ghosts had chased everyone so far away they could no longer be heard, or they were hurt. "I'll go find the others. They may need help. I saw Darvish get zapped."

She looked back at the Doctor. "If the ghosts are still chasing them, then they need to know about these trees, and if they're being panicked, they'll need their ipods fixed too."

"Wait a minute," Rory said, lifting up his ipod. "If you changed the frequency on these things, does it mean they are no longer protecting us from the monster?"

"'Fraid so," the Doctor said, scratching the back of his neck. "I can only program them for one frequency at a time. Like a radio," he explained. He held up a hand when it looked like Rory would protest.

"I don't think that will be a problem, Rory. If the 'monster' were going to attack us to keep us out, it would have already. Why bother when it has its guards to do that for it? Just remember to keep your mind on what you're doing. And no vengeance," he pointed a finger sternly at Amy.

"No promises," Amy retorted. "But right now, we need to get everyone back together. See who's okay. You two are going to need backup, whatever you find in there."

"Then why don't we _all_ go get everyone?" Rory said.

Amy shook her head and settled her backpack on her shoulders. "You two need to get in while you can. This may be our only chance. We'll follow when I find the others. Now show me how you did that adjustment thing."

—————

The Doctor showed Amy how to adjust the ipods to block the beta waves, and handed her his toolkit. "Be careful!"

"You too." She grabbed Rory by the back of the neck and gave him a hard kiss. " _Don't_ get zapped."

She started to crawl out of the trees between the boles. "Wait! How are you going to find them?" Rory asked.

Amy jerked her thumb upward. The Trelwins had grown bored with the talk and taken up guard positions, watching for danger beyond the boles.

" _Nelda!_ " Amy thought. The white Trelwin turned to look down at her.

Amy turned and grinned at her boys. "I don't think we'll have any problems. Nelda can find them for me. And there are plenty of twisty trees to hide in."

She looked back up and hand signed to Nelda. "Stay with me."

Amy jumped down out of the trees, looked all around, then started trotting back to where she'd seen Darvish fall.

—————

"I should have gone with Amy," Rory said as he followed the Doctor back through the woods, trusting that the Doctor had been keeping track of their direction when they'd fled.

"She has Nelda, and she'll soon find the others, she won't be alone," the Doctor said. "Besides, she's right. We need to get in while we can."

Rory scowled and followed the Doctor around the edge of a redwood. The Doctor stopped. Rory bumped into his back.

He looked up.

The towering ghost swiveled and glared down at them. It lunged forward, screaming like a train whistle.

They both screamed, and took off, in opposite directions. They saw their mistake and darted back together, conveniently splitting and running around the ghost. It changed direction without changing momentum and sailed after them, hissing and crackling like atoms being split on a laser.

"I thought you said the ipods would block us so they couldn't see us!" Rory yelled, running.

"It only blocks the beta emissions!" the Doctor yelled back. They dodged back and forth through the ferns, backpacks bumping.

The ghost kept coming, smooth, relentless, it reached down for them, claws out, flaring red, screaming like a tea kettle. Rory covered his head with his arms and kept running, trying to hide behind his backpack.

Chitchi flashed down out of the trees behind them, drawing the ghost's attention as they dove for the bark of the nearest twisty tree.

The advancing ghost stopped, just short of their tree, and hung there, motionless. The top of the young tree rattled and they looked up to see Chitchi perched among its small branches, his ribcage billowing with fear and exertion.

The ghost hung still, seeking, but without turning somehow.

Gradually it faded to white, again looking like the harmless, elegant elvin figures they'd first seen. It glided serenely away, back toward the line it had come from.

A hiss sounded behind them. Rory whirled and lashed out with the machete, beheading a snake with pure adrenaline response. Sweat beaded on his skin, his insides shook. "What _is_ it with this place!"

—————

They snuck back to the location where they'd first seen the fence, tiptoeing through the ferns, keeping an eye out for more ghosts. The Trelwin swung along overhead.

When they reached the area where they'd originally found the fence, Zeke and Chitchi dropped down into the ferns beside them. The Trelwin were stinking of tar, obviously reluctant to approach the ghosts, staying together, huddled on the ground. Rory didn't blame them, _they_ didn't have ipods to block out the beta wave panic.

But they were there, determined. The Doctor looked down at the brave, terrified aliens, then off toward the glow they could again see through the trees. He looked back down at the huddled Trelwin, and made a "whooshing" sign with his hands, like a bird taking off.

They turned and fled, swinging back up into the trees and away.

"What did you tell them?" Rory asked, wondering if being partially telepathic made it easier to read sign language.

"I sent them to go help Amy," the Doctor shrugged at him, with an understanding twist to his mouth. "It's hard to face your own monsters."

—————

The "electric fence" had been restored. The apparitions hovered in white resting mode, evenly spaced, with no gaps in the fence.

Rory took comfort from the fact that if the ghosts were all here, at least they weren't chasing Amy.

"So much for sneaking in," he said. "How are we going to get through now?" he asked.

"Dunno," the Doctor said thoughtfully, studying the line, plucking at his lip.

The Doctor and Rory watched as one of the fluffy creatures tried to hop between the apparitions. It bounced off the air with a zap.

It wailed and scampered away, trailing a smell of fried feathers.

"What are those things called anyway?" the Doctor asked.

"Dunno," Rory said, "Shale said they were 'Nuisances,' but I don't know if that was a name or just an opinion." They stared at the fence in silence, the ghosts hanging pale and still, leaves blew across the boundary.

"So, how _are_ we going to get through there?" Rory asked.

The ghosts didn't seem to be paying them any attention. They all looked asleep.

The Doctor stepped cautiously out from under the twisted tree they'd been hiding under. The ghosts didn't react.

He stuck his hands in his pockets and sauntered up, cocking his head and looking them over. He walked down and studied the next one. They weren't identical, there were subtle differences in each one they looked at.

"Do you think they're alive?" Rory whispered. "Or," he looked up at the nearest apparition, it was slightly shorter and stockier than the other two they'd examined, the face broader. "Once were?"

"Biology or artistic license?" the Doctor said. "I don't know." He picked up a stick and threw it between the apparitions. Rory flinched and prepared to run.

"One thing I do know," the Doctor said, as the stick sailed through unimpeded. "I don't think they can see."

"They saw well enough when they were _chasing_ us!" Rory protested.

The Doctor shook his head. "If they were using vision they would have seen us in the tree, microvortex or not. And they wouldn't have been able to see Jute in the grass." He plucked at his lip then started rummaging through his pockets. "Give me your life support unit."

Rory unclipped it and handed it over. The Doctor kept rummaging. Coat pockets, shirt, pants, he frowned. "I gave Amy my tool kit." He pulled out a half crumbled cookie and glared at it. "And even I can't adjust electronics with a Jammy Dodger." His mouth twisted wryly. Then he shrugged and stuffed the cookie in his mouth and started scanning the ground, looking for anything useful, munching.

"What about our medical kits?" Rory said. "They might have something you can use for tools." He detached his backpack and started rummaging through it.

"Brilliant idea, Rory!" The Doctor thumped him on the back. Rory opened up the small white box and riffled through the bandages and ointment.

"What about this?" He held something up.

"Tweezers! Perfect." The Doctor grabbed them, gave them a couple of snaps then started prying open the back of the life support unit.

Rory carefully repacked his medkit and stowed it, keeping an eye out for danger, his machete laying on the dirt beside him. Somehow he'd kept hold of it during all their earlier panic. "What exactly are you doing?" he asked, as he struggled to reattach his backpack.

The Doctor looked up from digging in the innards of the device, a smear of jam on the corner of his mouth. "Um? I figure our glowy friends here probably work by detecting lifesigns. If I can just readjust the electrical output of our revival units, change the cycle, I might be able to simulate the microvortex effect that keeps us hidden in the trees."

"You can do that?"

"It's all electricity, Rory. In fact, it's not unlike how the Monster turns people off."

Rory grimaced. "So, if this works, that means we should be able to slip right between them."

"That's the plan." The Doctor snapped Rory's unit shut, and started working on his own.

—————

"All right, let's try this," the Doctor said, starting to step forward.

Rory laid a hand on his arm, stopping him. "I'll go first. If I get fried, they'll still need you to deal with the monster," he said.

"That's very brave of you, Rory."

"Yeah, yeah." He took a deep breath. "Get ready to pull me out."

He held a hand out in front of him and walked cautiously between the ghosts, feeling at the air in front of him. He stared up at the apparitions, but they didn't move. There was no resistance, no forcefield.

He walked several steps and then stopped, inside the fence. He turned. "It worked!"

"Of course it worked, don't sound so surprised," the Doctor said arrogantly.

Rory laughed in relief. "Toss me my machete." He'd not wanted to risk taking the metal through an electrical field.

The Doctor tossed the large knife through the fence, Rory yelped and dodged as it almost fell on his foot.

"Sorry," the Doctor said, grimacing. He straightened his jacket, hiked his backpack higher, and stepped between the ghosts. They completely ignored him.

"So, we're invisible?" Rory asked as the Doctor joined him, grinning.

"To them, yes. Fun huh?" He slapped Rory on the back. "Now let's go see what's so important that it needs a fence of spectral bodyguards."

"Wait," Rory said. "How will the others get through?"

—————

The Doctor found a post-it note in his pocket. He wrote a note with the stub of a pencil and attached it to Rory's spare life support unit. They set the unit on a broad leaf and shoved it back through the fence with a long stick.

"There!" the Doctor said, dusting his hands off with satisfaction.

"That will get one of them through," Rory said. "But what about the rest?"

"They can toss the unit back through the field and come through one at a time," the Doctor said, nonchalantly. "I left instructions." He waved at the unit.

They turned and stared into the interior. It was wide open in here, broad ground of brown dirt, high trees looming overhead like a cathedral, the occasional giant boulder. And intimidatingly gloomy farther on.

Rory clasped his machete tighter. The Doctor clapped Rory on the shoulder without quite his usual bonhomie. He gripped tight for a second.

"Let's go see."

—————

Behind them, the Doctor's note fluttered in the breeze. Then peeled off and floated away.


	25. Chapter 25

Amy crept back to where she'd seen Darvish fall. She kept her mind open to catch any thought or warning from Nelda above her, kept her ears open for the telltale whine of the ghosts, and kept her eyes open to locate the nearest twisty trees.

She found Darvish just starting to sit up, woozy, and faintly incoherent, he blinked at her, his eyes crossing and uncrossing before he finally managed to focus on her.

"Come on," she said, hauling him up with one hand, head swiveling as she scouted for danger. He was heavy, but he managed to get his feet under him. Miraculously he still had his ax, although it was charred all up one edge.

"Are you all right?" he asked groggily, shaking his head and bracing his hands on his knees.

" _I'm_ fine," she said. "It's the others we have to worry about."

He nodded and looked around heavily. "Where are Rory and the Doctor?"

"They went ahead to sneak into the zone."

His head whipped to her.

"Don't look at me like that, somebody has to get in there. I told them we'd follow them once we got everyone back together."

He rubbed a hand over his long, lean face. "Any ideas where the others are?"

She tugged on his arm. "The last I saw Bill she was over this way."

He made no comment but followed her, still shaking his head. He cast an eye around, scanning professionally. And she noticed he was quieter moving through the ferns than she was. All to the good.

She headed for the large boulders she'd seen Bill try to hide behind.

—

Amy felt Nelda's leap of excitement. She looked up to see the white Trelwin pointing a long arm off to the right of their current direction. She altered course.

Bill and Darvish didn't ask how she was communicating with the Trelwin, and Amy didn't enlighten them. Things were weird enough without that. And, honestly, she wasn't sure how they'd react to the idea of Trelwins being telepathic. Signing animals were one thing. _Telepathic_ animals were another.

They found Jute half in and half out of a stream. He'd lost his backpack somewhere. And the side of his face looked charred and reddened, as if he'd been electrocuted.

Darvish and Bill pulled him out carefully. They rolled him over and checked for further injuries, fortunately it seemed to be mostly his face and neck.

Eula found them there as they tended Jute and tried to wake him up.

He stumbled out of the brush, hair wild, looking more than a bit mad. He was juttering, his eyes wheeling, and he looked about to bolt.

Darvish picked up his ax, but Amy stopped him and held out a hand to Eula. 'It's all right, it's just the ghosts, they send out beta waves, it makes you panic." His head jerked around at the mention of the ghosts, scanning frantically.

"No, there's none here, there's no ghosts," Amy said. Jute took that moment to wake up with a long moan.

Eula's eyes went white. He whirled to run. A brown form flashed out of the trees and tackled him. They struggled, rolling, Eula fighting frantically against a long-limbed body that was nearly as large as he was.

Amy jumped forward and thumped him on the head with her full canteen. Eula went limp. The brown form disentangled itself.

"Thanks, Chitchi."

Zeke dropped down out of the trees and stood guard over the unconscious hunter.

"That reminds me," Amy said, turning back to the others, Bill was helping Jute sit up. "Give me your ipods, I need to adjust them."

—

With Zeke and Chitchi's help they managed to find and gather the others together fairly quickly. Erik and Pickles had found each other, and followed Chitchi back to the group.

They found Garon back by the fence, desperately searching for his brother.

"He was right here!" He waved to the tree his brother's body had smashed against. He tore at his hair, eyes frantically scanning the ground, running up and down the fenceline, checking each tree to be sure he hadn't gotten the wrong one. Completely ignoring the silent sentinels.

Erik caught him by the shoulders. "Stop it! Think!"

Garon turned wild eyes on him. "I didn't mean it. I said nobody comes out of here alive, but I didn't mean _George!_ "

Amy winced. Her eyes flowed around the area, even as the others spread out to look. There were no telltale dragmarks or bloody remains. Apparently an animal hadn't gotten him. The ground was a scramble of their panicked footprints from before. Although remarkably clear around where George had fallen.

"Over here!" Pickles waved from down the line. They all trotted over, the ghosts were ignoring them, but they all kept a healthy distance.

Pickles pointed down. A triangular life support unit was sitting on a leaf at the base of the fence. Pickles pointed.

"Tracks," Erik said in his booming voice. Amy's eyes zeroed in on what the hunters had seen, beyond the fence, two pairs of footprints led off into the Zone.

"They got through then," Amy said with relief.

"Never mind them, what about George!" Garon yelled. Darvish clapped a hand on his shoulder and the others spread out again.

Amy felt something bomp against her head. A twig, with leaves still attached spiraled down in front of her. She scowled and glared up into the trees.

Zeke was pointing. Chitchi was beckoning. The two Trelwin swung off through the trees back in the direction they'd come from.

"This way!" Amy yelled, and took off after them. The rest heard and followed.

Zeke dropped down out of the trees and landed like an acrobat. He ambled over, all knees and elbows, his grace ungainly on the ground, and pulled aside a weeping veil of leaves in front of a pile of large boulders.

A startled " _AAH!_ " came from the small crevice between the rocks. Garon pushed forward. " _George?_ " he said with terrifying hope.

An identical face pushed out of the darkness.

"Eldon!" Garon said with relief on seeing his twin. "Where's George?!"

"He's here," the other brother remarked, he looked haggard and streaked with dirt and sweat. "I managed to circle back and drag him in here while the ghosts were chasing you all." He waved a worried hand back into the darkness. Garon dropped down on all fours and pushed in past him to see for himself.

Eldon's face lifted to the rest of them. "He's bad."

Eula, still jittery from his own encounter with the ghosts seemed to calm down at that. He shrugged off his backpack and dug out his more extensive medical kit. "Let me take a look at him."

Eldon crawled out of the cramped crevice and made way for the slighter man. They could hear Garon farther inside, "George?"

"Don't move him!" Eula barked as he crawled in, shoving his medkit before him.

Eldon stood up and stretched, running dirty hands over his face. Bill handed him a canteen. Eldon stared at it for a moment, then took it. "Thanks." He took a swig, then poured water over his face scrubbing away the dirt.

"I don't know why," he said, as they listened to the sounds of Eula and Garon conferring in the stones, "but those things just all floated right past us. It's like they didn't even know we were there. I'd brushed out our tracks, but it wasn't that." He eyed the silent apparitions behind them, still wary.

"This is why," Amy said, pulling up the leafy branches. A small tree grew up out of the top of the stones, twisting down so that its branches formed a screen in front of the small cave.

Darvish went on to explain the significance of the twisted trees. Zeke and Chitchi sat on top of the stones, listening to the sounds beneath them, and watching everyone.

"Thanks, guys," Amy whispered. Zeke looked at her with that particularly flat animal look, eyes blinking. Even now she couldn't quite tell what he was thinking.

Eula backed out of the crevice, he stood up and brushed himself off. Darvish stared at him. Bill, Jute and Pickles stood guard at three corners, keeping an eye out for danger, and watching the ghosts.

"He's alive." Eula said. There was a collective outpouring of breath. Even from the guards. "He's got a bruised spine, cracked ribs, a concussion, broken wrist and a hell of a burn all up his right arm, but he should be all right if we can get him back without wrenching the spine. Needless to say, we can't move him." He looked over at the fence, and the clear area beyond where the Doctor and Rory had disappeared.

Garon poked his head out, watching on all fours. "I'll stay with him," he said. Eldon started to object. Garon overrode him, "You had your turn. Besides, if I hadn't made that damned useless remark..."

Eldon stared at him, confused, then his face cleared and he swatted his guilty feeling brother on the head. "You are _such_ a fool."

"Fine," Erik said, breaking the stalemate. "So what do we do now?"

They all turned to look at Amy. Her eyes widened and her head reared back at that sudden focus of attention.

Erik waved a hand beyond the fence behind them, the gesture somehow taking in the ten foot tall electrified ghosts standing in their way.

"You said we'd join them, any ideas how?" he asked, matter of fact, but a bit sarcastic.

She plopped her hands on her hips, nettled, and looked around at the others. "Isn't it obvious?"

Eight pairs of eyebrows went up.

She huffed. "If the Doctor and Rory got through while those things were chasing us, then all we have to do is get them to chase one of us again and the rest can slip through behind them."

"I'm not going through that again," Eula said.

"Are you volunteering to be bait?" Erik demanded of Amy.

"What about the rest of us?" Bill said. "Won't they chase all of us?"

Zeke and Chitchi got tired of the discussion and swung off into the trees.

Amy didn't blame them. "The rest of us will hide in the trees," she explained. "There's bound to be a couple of twisted trees close to the fence that could hold all of us. And the one who is bait only has to lead them far enough off to give us a chance before finding a tree of their own."

Darvish nodded and rubbed his jaw. "That could work. We'll have to scout the best location to..."

There was a sudden panicked warble from the jungle and one of the large local deerlike animals burst out of the trees almost into the midst of them. They scattered and dove out of the way, only to be confused to see Zeke and Chitchi swinging down behind the deer, swatting at it with branches, driving it along.

The deer, eight feet tall at the withers, and with an impressive rack of antlers, turned midflight and tried to gouge at them. Zeke slapped it across the face with a sharp branch, leaving scratches. The deer flinched its eyes away and ran, straight between two of the apparitions.

The air zapped! Throwing the entire thousand pound deer twenty feet back into the forest. Everyone stood shock still, hair standing on end. The forest king lay there for several seconds, gently steaming. Then started to twitch. It lifted its head, foundered a bit, then wallowed to its feet and bounded drunkenly away back into the bush.

"Well," Erik said into the silence. "Any other ideas?"

Amy scrubbed at her face and glared at the apparently empty space between the ghosts. The Doctor and Rory had gotten through, it was possible. So how had they done it? She grunted. Getting into places was rather a forte of the Doctor's.

But what could _they_ do? She looked up at the ghosts, walked up close to the fence to examine them. They still weren't reacting. They hadn't so much as flinched when the deer had been zapped.

She turned and pointed at Eula, "How did you get away from the ghosts?" she demanded suddenly.

He looked surprised at the sudden attention. Then sour. "After the _third_ time they zapped me, I must have passed out. When I woke up they were gone."

Amy turned again. "And we found Jute in a stream."

Jute grimaced, wrinkling the red side of his face. "I thought the water might ground them out. I was wrong."

"But you were unconscious." She turned again. "And so were you, Darvish. After they blasted you, they left you alone."

"What's your point?"

Amy turned and looked up speculatively at the ghost floating serenely above her. "Maybe they're just here to drive people off."

"Tell us something we don't know," said Erik.

She glared at him. "Don't you see, they stopped when they thought we were all down, either unconscious, or in the trees, where they couldn't detect us. Even that deer was merely zapped back, not killed. Maybe it's not strong enough to kill us."

"Tell that to George," Eldon said.

"It was him hitting the tree that did most of the damage." She looked down the line of ghosts. "I wonder how much energy this thing can actually put out?"

Suddenly a scream shattered the air. From inside the zone.

" _Rory!_ " Amy jumped forward instinctively. And hit the fence.

—

* * *

_For more stories by this author click[here](http://archiveofourown.org/users/betawho/works)._  
 _Please take a moment to leave a comment in the box below._


	26. Chapter 26

Amy woke up with every nerve ending in her body twitching under her skin. She stared up out of the well of ferns at the leaves waving overhead.

Her head buzzed, her throat felt dry, and she felt like she'd been stung by a hundred wasps.

Everything seemed to be silent and distant. Then she heard the far off sound of the Doctor's voice screaming, "Rory!"

Galvanize, she jerked upright, startling the hunters who'd been rushing toward her.

"We've got to go save them!" She leaped to her feet, ignoring her weak and trembling muscles and pushed through the concerned hunters to glare at the electric fence.

It was defying her, that's what it was doing. It was keeping her from her boys! She noted that none of the ghosts had moved, they apparently hadn't even reacted when she hit the fence. It was an insult, that's what it was!

Suddenly she stopped and looked up at the still, pale ghost floating above her, and realized. THEY COULD DO IT! The idea arrived like a wall of fire. All they had to...

Everything went black.

—

She came to the second time with a life support unit blinking on her chest, and a ring of concerned faces staring down at her.

"Can you sit up?" Eula asked.

She blinked at him, then accepted the arm he held down to her. She sat up, her hair falling in her face. She looked down at her open shirt.

"What happened?"

"The monster got you," Erik said in his gruff voice. "It's a good thing my ipod was still at the original settings." He hadn't let her alter his. "We used it on you."

She blinked up at him. "Thanks." She started to stand up, but he laid a huge hand on her arm.

"What were you thinking?" He beetled hairy eyebrows at her.

She frowned and touched the earpods still tucked in her ears. She sat back down and looked up. Her mind cleared. "The fence!" She turned and looked at it, it was still there, guardians floating impassively.

"I know how we can get through!" she said.

"How?" Bill asked over her shoulder as she and Jute kept watch.

"The fence only knocks you back if you try to go between the ghosts, and the ghosts only react if you touch them. But what if we ran something through that they couldn't stop?" she looked around at their puzzled faces.

"We don't know what their power threshold is," Erik pointed out. "Who knows whether they'd amp the power up until it was fatal."

"Doesn't matter," Amy said, climbing to her feet, wiping leaves off her backside. "They stop attacking when they see a target has been neutralized, they didn't keep going after Eula or Jute or George once they were down."

"What _exactly_ are you proposing?" Darvish asked.

"An Herbivore."

They all started spluttering protests. "You're mad." "That'll never work." "We can't control something that big..."

"Look!" She glared them all down. "The Doctor and Rory are in there, they're unarmed, and in danger. This whole _world_ is in danger," she waved her arms extravagantly. "We can't just stand here and _debate!_ "

She pointed beyond the fence. "If that damned 'monster' can get me in here, then it's still affecting people out there too! If something has happened to Rory and the Doctor it's up to us to stop that thing. Now, does anyone _else_ have a better idea?"

They looked at each other, and withered under her glare.

"God, you're stubborn!" Erik crossed his arms over his barrel chest. And for the first time he smiled at her. "My sister would have liked you. She was a smartass, too."

—

"Well," said Pickles, "if we're going to do this, the first thing we need is to find a Herbivore."

"Right," Erik said, unshouldering his big gun. "Everyone spread out, look for signs of..."

"No need for that," Amy interrupted. She looked up and located Nelda's white hide in the treetops. She thought an image to her, the Trelwin's head went up and she looked around. She climbed higher, eyes casting around, she swung a few trees farther over, then pointed a long white arm.

"You speak Trelwin now?" Erik asked, disbelieving.

Amy grinned smugly at him, crossing her arms. She shrugged. "I'm smart."

"As..ss, has been established," he put an emphasis on the "s" sound. She smirked at him. "Are you done having your epiphany now?" he asked.

She raised her eyebrows at him. "Then can I have my ipod back? Just in case, you know, I get the urge to murder someone."

She pulled off the earphones and handed it back to him with a grin.

"Speaking of that," Darvish said. "Perhaps you'd better readjust half the other ipods back, just in case."

"Uh," Amy said, suddenly biting her lip. "I don't think I can." She grimaced. "I don't remember the original setting."

"So who's smart now?" Erik said under his breath. She smacked him on one beefy arm. He laughed.

Pickles held out his hand. "If I can borrow your toolkit," he said to Amy, "Erik's is still set to the original setting. We can check it and reset the others to match."

Amy and Erik gave each other looks, Darvish ignored them and got everyone else organized while Pickles worked on the ipods; cataloging weapons, getting George and Garon settled, choosing where would be the best spot on the perimeter to aim the Herbivore at, so it wouldn't trample George and Garon on the way.

He looked up at Nelda and she seemed to know what he wanted, because she pointed off into the woods again, slightly north of her previous direction.

Amy was jittering like an ant on a hotplate. "All right," Darvish said with a sigh. "Let's go."

—

They found the Herbivore placidly chewing on trees, not far north of where they'd seen the last one. In fact, it may have been the same one.

Darvish sent Pickles and Eula back to scout out the clearest route between the Herbivore and the fence. No use trying to herd it through standing trees.

Nelda, Zeke and Chitchi crouched in the high treetops, watching the proceedings.

When the hunters had decided to come into the zone, they'd come prepared. Alongside the general guns and ammunition, they'd also brought along a collection of more esoteric weapons. Each hunter carried something different, ensuring the widest variety, to cover all contingencies.

The Herbivore, completely oblivious to its fate, paid the hunters no more mind than if they'd been rabbits under its feet. Amy looked up at the huge creature. Any one of them could have walked under its belly without ducking their head. And close up the browser smelled of musk and sweat and torn greenery. Dust kicked up with every footfall of the huge hoofs as it ambled from redwood to redwood, casually stripping off lower branches that any one of them could have sat on comfortably.

Pickles and Eula returned. "We've found a route. We marked the trees. Just keep it between the marks!" Eula yelled from ahead.

Darvish nodded and turned. "You heard him. Jute, light him up."

Jute cocked his gun, which was also a flamethrower. He lit the Herbivore's feathery-tipped tail on fire.

The Herbivore chewed placidly. They all backed up, ranging around it, ready to run. It stopped chewing and snuffled the air, the sound like winds in a cavern. Suddenly it jumped straight up and bellowed. It landed with a crash of divoting earth and ran off like, well, like its tail was on fire.

Fortunately it had been aimed in the right direction. Pickles and Eula ran ahead to point out the route. Jute followed behind in case any more incentive was necessary.

Amy stuck close to Bill and Darvish who ran along the left side, lagging behind, while Erik and Eldon took the right. They all sprinted to keep up as the Herbivore thundered through the forest.

Pickles started semaphoring with his arms.

"Right! Turn him right!" Darvish yelled.

"Fire in the hole!" Bill yelled, and threw a grenade. It twirled end over end and exploded beside the beast's left front foot. The beast swerved, tacking onto a new path. The Trelwins swang along overhead, eyes wide at the spectacle.

"Left! Turn it left!" Erik yelled from the other side. There was a burst of machine gun fire and a flash of white from a photon grenade. The Herbivore kept running, churning through the undergrowth, stomping down small trees.

"Turn him!" Erik and Eula both yelled. Amy and Bill ducked around to the other side to lend their support. Amy scooped up a handful of rocks as she ran, it wouldn't do much good against that hide. But if she could throw it in the eye...

Darvish accelerated forward, running right under the beast, his broadax out, he swiped at the front right hamstring, missing by a handbreadth and had to roll aside before he was trampled by the hind feet.

Bill threw another grenade as the Herbivore barreled into thicker brush. The grenade blew a stand of ferns into confetti but didn't deter the Herbivore. Jute shot out a line of flame, but was too far back, managing only to singe the haunch, which turned the Herbivore even farther to the right.

Suddenly Nelda dropped down out of the trees onto the giant bison's head. Chitchi dropped down beside her a few steps later, as the beast mindlessly galloped through the thick tangled jungle as if it wasn't there.

The male Trelwin handed the female a large leaf, three feet broad and no doubt picked off one of the jungle trees. The white female grabbed the leaf stem and leaned down over the jouncing head, holding on to the lumpy felted suede of the head with hands and feet, and dropped the broad leaf over the Herbivore's right eye.

Half blinded, the Herbivore started veering left.

After a few steps it started to slow. Jute fired up its tail again and it bellowed and lumbered forward, still veering left.

Darvish waved a hand at Pickles and Eula, "Find us a path back on course!" The two hunters thumbs upped and ran off.

Bill was still gaping at the white primate leaning over holding a leaf over the Herbivore's eye like some sort of optician's tool.

"Where did she learn to do that?" she asked, trotting to keep up. "I thought she'd lived in the home tree all her life."

Amy shrugged, long legs eating up the ground, boots pounding. "How do you know an elephant can pick up things with its nose?" she asked, obviously. "Maybe she heard about it somewhere."

Bill turned to stare at her, "What's an elephant?"

Darvish trotted up, overhearing. "It's an ancient Earth creature," he said in his best biology professor's voice, keeping an eye open for Pickles and Eula.

"It picks things up with its nose?" Eldon asked.

—

Pickles and Eula appeared in a couple of trees ahead of them, both semaphoring.

"Straight!" Erik and Darvish both yelled at the same time from opposite sides of the giant beast.

"Amy can you tell Nelda..."

Before Darvish even finished the thought, Nelda raised her leaf and scuttled back to the Herbivore's forehead. The beast straightened out and shook its head, trying to rid itself of the itchy vermin. Chitchi and Nelda held on. The beast staggered under its head shake, everyone scattered out of the way, huge blunt feet rumbling the ground.

Jute applied a little more incentive and the beast leapt forward again bellowing, determined to get away from its tormentors.

The hunters followed, running flat out to keep up, dodging flying debris churned up by the dash through the forest. Amy flagged, then found her second wind. She had to hand it to these hunters, they were certainly in shape.

With Chitchi and Nelda providing the steering, one eye after the other, they soon found themselves bearing down on the glowing light of the ghostly electric fence.

The herbivore tried to slow down, to veer away, but flame, exploding grenades and machine gun fire drove it on. At the last minute Chitchi and Nelda backflipped off of the Herbivore's head, landing in the dust.

It hit the fence with an almighty crash of electricity. Lightning arched. A blinding white light blotted out everyone's vision. The Herbivore keened and struggled.

The entire line of ghosts flashed red and converged. Sliding sidewise like they were on rails. Red ghosts piled on the struggling Herbivore. Lightning crackled, a firestorm. The Herbivore collapsed with a thump like an earthquake.

Everything went still for a moment. The red heap of ghosts lay motionless. The very leaves on the trees seemed to hold their breaths.

Then sound leached back in. The ghosts all faded back to white, slowly sliding back down the fence to their regularly spaced positions. Faces elegant, blank, sleeping.

"Did it work?" Eldon asked into the hush.

The last two ghosts on either side of the Herbivore turned to face each other, and faded to blue.

Darvish's head reared back in suspicion, his eyes flickering back and forth between the blue ghosts, their eyes were closed.

Amy jumped forward, impelled by desperate thoughts of the Doctor and Rory.

"Wait," Darvish grabbed her arm. "Just because it's down, doesn't mean the fence is down. It could just be electrified along with it."

They all stared at the Herbivore. It didn't seem to be smoking, it didn't catch fire, but it also didn't seem to be breathing. The nearest ghosts on either side of the beast hovered silently, misty sapphire blue.

"What does the blue mean?" Jute asked.

"Let's hope it means there's a hole in the fence," Erik said.

Nelda looked back and forth between the humans, who didn't seem to be doing anything. Amy felt a pulse of impatience brush her mind, something other than her own.

Suddenly the ivory white Trelwin turned and loped for the fence, she caught the Herbivore's charred tail and shimmied up, loping across the creatures huge humped back, passing beyond the halfway point where the fence should have been, with no ill effects. She turned to look at them over her shoulder.

"I think that answers that," Amy said, she rushed forward, following Nelda's example, and climbed up one of the Herbivores sprawled back legs, crawled up the hump to its back.

The others followed.

—

Metal screamed as the tiger raked its claws against the shuttle door, the whole transport lurched as the tree cat gained purchase. The door shrieked, and the reinforcing bar in the flywheel bent as the door started to wrench open.

There was a boom like lightning and the ground shook, a blinding flash of white light blasted through the porthole.

"What was that?" Rory asked.

—

The rest of the hunters climbed over the bridge of the Herbivore's back. The ghosts ignored them. They entered the dusty clear area inside the perimeter. They quickly checked weapons and headed out in a straggling line following Amy.

As the last of them touched both feet down off the Herbivore's nose, they all collapsed.

—

* * *

_For more stories by this author click[here](http://archiveofourown.org/users/betawho/works)._  
_Please take a moment to leave a comment in the box below._


	27. Chapter 27

The Doctor and Rory walked into the Zone for quite a while. The area in here was strangely clear, as if plants refused to grow, and yet it sported some of the largest trees they’d seen so far. No twisty trees though, which was rather worrying.

Rory looked behind them, at least there were no ghosts following them.

“Any idea yet what we’re going to find in here?” Rory asked as they walked up a dusty incline.

“No,” the Doctor said as they crested the rise. They stopped. “But I didn’t expect that.”

In a dish shaped area beyond the rise they finally found the downed transport. And a black, obsidian complex of buildings rising into towers and onion domes.

It glowed like black glass. Squat to the ground, looking half buried, gleaming spires rising up like spears. A block of windowless structures completely at odds with the natural area surrounding it.

The downed transport had crashed into the building, knocking one corner of it to rubble. One black onion dome lay shattered on its downed crystal column.

The vague sunlight scintillated through the building, gleaming in waves like oil on water.

Rory followed the Doctor down, scrambling to keep his purchase on the dusty slope. The Doctor strode eagerly forward, eyes darting everywhere, taking it all in.

“What is it?” Rory asked.

“A building,” the Doctor called back over his shoulder.

Rory huffed. “I can see that. What’s it doing _here_?”

The Doctor walked right up to the wall, face practically glowing with interest. He didn’t touch the surface, luckily, Rory didn’t trust anything they found here. But he did tilt his head back, the building was only about fourteen feet tall, although the spires at the odd corners made it look taller. It looked almost like a palace, or a temple. But colder somehow. Rory shivered, imagining what might be inside.

The Doctor walked up and down the line of the gleaming, swirling wall, squinting and peering in, as if trying to see through the glass.

Rory caught up with him and steered him back, away from it. The Doctor didn’t seem to notice. He looked up at the nearest spire and tilted his head. “You know,” he said. “I think those are solid.”

Rory stared at the dome, one hand still firm on the Doctor’s arm. The spire was built into the corner of the building, part of the integral structure, and jutted upward another twenty feet before swelling out into the pointed onion dome.

“If you say so,” he said, unwilling to get any closer to be sure. “The whole thing looks solid to me.” He couldn’t see any windows or doors, he couldn’t even see any mortar cracks or places where blocks fit together, it seemed to be all one seamless edifice.

“Fascinating...” The Doctor started dragging him heedlessly closer, Rory dug his heels in.

“Let’s check on the transport first,” he said, feet shuffling in the dust, the Doctor’s unexpected strength dragging him along like a fish on a reel. “We did come here looking for survivors, remember?” he said, practically.

The Doctor turned to look at him, the blank look of fascination clearing to a more conscientious, aware expression. “Yes. Quite right. People might need our help.”

—————

The transport, not much more than a personal shuttle, had crashed through the line of jungle trees then slammed into a corner of the building, knocking one whole corner off in a pile of rubble and sending one onion dome rolling away to lay like a giant battered bowling ball thirty meters from its starting point.

The transport hadn’t fared well, crumbled, scratched, gouged, its undercarriage ripped out, it had come to rest at a drunken slant on the pile of black glassy rubble it had knocked off the building. The nose plowed into the soil.

They found their first survivor before they even cleared the corner of the building.

“Poor soul,” Rory said. He stared down at the ripped and tattered coverall, its chute harness still clasped around a ribcage of grey bones.

The entire body had been stripped clean, almost looking like it had disintegrated where it lay. Rory knelt to examine it. He looked up and down the long length, it was still wearing its boots. The skull lay sideways but unattached at the top of the spine. He reached down and compared the size of his hand to the outsplayed skeletal hand emerging from the sleeve. He accidentally brushed against a pinkie bone, which rolled to the side with a muted clatter. He guiltily rolled it back into place.

“Adult male by the look of it.” He looked up at the Doctor. “What could do this so fast? The transport only went missing a week ago.”

The Doctor shook his head and looked around, keeping a nervous lookout. Rory looked over his shoulder at the black building. It looked no more inviting from this angle, the walls weren’t square here, like the front, but sort of star shaped, a tower at each point. Black, opaque, oily. He shuddered.

“Let’s check the ship,” the Doctor said, shifting his shoulders at the chill wind that seemed to blow through the bowl.

They found the ship wasn’t just canted up on rubble, but on a collection of the large boulders that littered the area. Several huge trees ringed the complex on the other sides of the bowl, casting even more shade, the light seemed to come down out of a murky haze, as if through a black veil.

Rory looked up uncomfortably, he expected to see bats flying overhead, but it was just the light. He decided it must be some sort of refraction from the black glass of the building. He didn’t like it.

They searched the ground leading up to the crashed ship, looking for any more bodies. There were a few more clumps of weeds and some bushes down here, more ferns further on. But they reached the ship without finding anything.

The Doctor stood on tiptoe and looked into the cockpit. Miraculously, the glass of the cockpit window had somehow survived intact.

“See anything?” Rory asked, watching the Doctor squinting in through a low corner, hands shading his eyes.

“Nothing, no bodies anyway. Let’s try the door.” They climbed up the shifting black rubble to the hatch, it had warped in its frame, the bottom virtually torn out with the undercarriage. The Doctor turned the wheel with a rusty squeal, more from warping than rust, and tried to yank it open.

He stretched up on his toes, but couldn’t get any leverage. “Try pulling on it down there,” he instructed Rory, lower on the scree. Rory wedged his fingers in the warped bottom corner and pulled, managed to wiggle the door in its frame while the Doctor turned harder on the wheel.

A shadow fell over Rory, he looked up.

A treecat stared down at him. It crouched on top of the shuttle. Yellow eyes, blue-black hide mottled with green spotted circles, like something poisonous. Teeth the size of butcher knives, as silent as a Trelwin.

“Rory, pull,” the Doctor said testily, still struggling obliviously with the door. Rory squeaked, the cat leapt. Rory screamed.

The cat knocked him away from the ship, down the rubble, rolling onto the dirt. He rolled up, scrabbling for his machete. The cat knocked it out of his hand with one huge clawed paw.

“Rory!” The Doctor leaped to his side and threw a handful of dirt into the cat’s face. It wasn’t as large as the first treecat they’d seen, this one was smaller, and sleeker, black and green, meant to hide in the shadows, like a panther, but still twice as large as a lion.

“Run!” the Doctor yelled, pushing Rory to the side.

“Where to?!”

“The ship, I got the door open!”

The transport hatch gaped open like salvation. Rory sprinted, the Doctor at his side. And the cat leapt, knocked the Doctor aside with a huge paw, and pounced on Rory, bearing him to the ground and biting at the back of his neck.

It was only his chute that saved him.

The cat thrashed, whipping him around by his harness, its mouth full of parachute silk. The puffy flap at the back of his vest had ridden up, fortunately protecting his neck against the sharp scratch of teeth.

—————

“Rory!” the Doctor screamed. The treecat had him pinned, yanking at his back, looking like it was getting ready to drag him away and feast on him.

The Doctor jumped forward and grabbed its tail, he yanked and twisted, the cat threw back its head and yowled silently, it whipped its head back at him, striking like a tiger. The Doctor kept hold of the tail and was dragged around out of range of the teeth. The cat kept circling, the Doctor with it, he held on doggedly, whipping around, legs flailing, on one revolution he managed to get his toe under Rory’s machete and kick it to him.

“Rory! Catch!”

Rory rolled over, heart thumping at his near death experience, and scrambled for the knife. The Doctor twisted the cat's tail again, earning another silent yowl and snarl, and steered the circling, snatching cat toward the shuttle.

“Inside! Quick!”

Rory stared at the transport, stared at the Doctor circling closer, then lunged forward and slashed at the treecat’s face with his machete. He sliced a line across its nose, it yowled silently and turned to confront Rory. The Doctor let go and he and Rory both bolted for the shuttle.

They dove inside and turned and kicked the door shut. The cat hit the door with a resounding thud. Shrill screeches reverberated through the stale air of the shuttle as the cat clawed furiously at the door. The Doctor held the wheel lock in place to prevent the cat accidentally catching it and turning it open.

“Find something to jam this with!” he said, sweat staining his neck and floppy hair as the wheel jerked under his arms, the shuttle shuddering under the blows.

Rory climbed farther into the doomed shuttle, looking for something to bar the door.

—————

He came back with a six foot long piece of wall reinforcement edging, one big, black paw was clawing up under the warped bottom corner of the door, wrenching at the hatch, he slammed it with the rod. It jerked back.

He and the Doctor wedged the bar crossways into the flywheel and stood back. The wall shuddered, the wheel jerked, but the bar held.

“I think you’d better come see this,” Rory said.

The Doctor looked up at his tone. Rory led him back into the ship, the bottom of the transport had been virtually ripped out, leaving a tilted floor of rocks and debris, fortunately no holes large enough for the cat to get through. Although the shadows that passed in front of the gaps showed it was stalking them outside. Rory suppressed a shudder.

He pushed open an inner door with a screech, and nodded his head in. Inside were two more clothed skeletons, a woman, and what looked like a ten year old child. It looked like they had tried to barricade themselves in. They were huddled in a corner, skeletons half crumpled against the wall.

As they watched, a fat red ant, as long as Rory’s thumb, crawled out of the woman’s boot. Rory jumped, then promptly stamped on it. He and the Doctor backed out quickly, wrestling the door closed behind them, the Doctor grabbed a seat cushion off of the eating area behind them and crammed it under the gap at the bottom of the door, he and Rory kicking it under firmly with their boots, scuffing dirt over it to fill any cracks.

Rory’s heart was racing. He gulped at a dry throat. “I guess that explains what happened to the bodies.”

The Doctor nodded, hair flopping. “Nasty planet.”

Rory exhaled. “I guess we better see what else we can find.”

He and the Doctor checked the cockpit, which was in surprisingly good condition. There was no power, naturally. They decided to leave the equipment for Erik and Darvish to deal with. They continued on to the back of the shuttle, more of a one family camper van/personal airplane. The back end tilted up on the rubble, torn bulkheads, warped companionway, supplies and boxes tumbled every which way in the small hold.

“Doctor, look at this!” Rory pointed out through a porthole in the small exit ramp hatch. The Doctor squashed his face next to Rory’s in the glass.

“A hole!”

Outside, at the edge of the scree, a dark hole gaped in the broken corner of the building.

Suddenly the black treecat’s snarling face lurched at the port and they jumped back.

“Persistent, isn’t he?” the Doctor said. The cat scratched at the glass with a nails-on-chalkboard sound, but the door was solid.

The Doctor turned away. “I wonder if they have anything to eat in here?”

—————

Their reprieve didn’t last long.

Metal screamed as the tiger resumed raking its claws against the damaged shuttle door, determined to get at them, the whole transport lurched as the tree cat gained purchase. The door shrieked, and the reinforcing bar in the flywheel bent as the door started to wrench open.

Rory, a cracker hanging out of his mouth, and the Doctor ran in from the eating area and grabbed the flywheel, bracing their feet against the doorjamb.

There was a boom like lightning and the ground shook, a blinding flash of white light blasted through the porthole.

“What was that?” Rory asked.

—————

Rory woke up to the feeling of the Doctor patting his cheeks. “Come on, Rory, wakey, wakey!”

Rory grunted and coughed and shoved the Doctor’s hands away, the Time Lord beamed at him.

Rory sat up in the ruined hallway and looked around groggily, everything was silent. “What happened?”

“Don’t know,” the Doctor said. “You passed out.”

“The monster!” Rory grabbed for his ipod.

The Doctor shook his head. “No, this was something else.” He hauled Rory to his feet with one arm. “Come on, that flash came from the fence. We’d better go look.” He started to shove open the shuttle hatch door.

“Wait!” Rory grabbed his arm. “The cat!”

“It’s asleep.” The Doctor pointed through the porthole. Rory’s eyebrows beetled and he looked out through the hole. The cat lay sprawled outside, blue-black and green spots lightly undulating as it snored. He turned and gave the Doctor an incredulous look.

The Doctor tapped his ipod. “I had to modify this to wake you up.”

“It didn’t affect you?”

“Oh, well, I’m special.” The Doctor grinned and bounced on his feet.

—————

They snuck out of the shuttle, tiptoeing past the cat.

They ran worriedly back toward the fence, everything was silent. No birds sang, no rustlings of things in the trees, nothing.

They found the hunting party sprawled just inside the fence, the huge hump of a downed Herbivore behind them.

“Amy!” Rory yelled for his wife.

He and the Doctor skidded to a halt on their knees beside Amy and gently turned her over, her red hair spread out like spilled blood. Rory put his head to her chest. He let out a huge sigh. “She’s still breathing.”

He shook her lightly. No response. He tapped her cheek. “Amy? Amy!” he yelled. “What’s wrong?” he asked the Doctor.

The Doctor raised her eyelid with a thumb and checked her eyes. “Hmm.”

“What?” Rory looked at what he was looking at. Amy’s eyes were dilated and half rolled up.

“The same as you.” The Doctor dug in Amy’s pocket and pulled out his toolkit. He cracked her ipod open like a shell and started adjusting it. “Oh, that’s clever,’ he said, looking at the settings. “It must have sensed an incursion and increased the Alpha and Theta brainwaves. Probably used the natural emissions of the zone as a booster. It’s forced them all into a meditative state so deep they may as well be unconscious.” He looked around, checking, everyone seemed to be breathing.

“Then why are _they_ waking up?” Rory asked, pointing.

The Doctor looked where Rory indicated. The crumpled white, brown, and dappled gray forms of the Trelwins were starting to stir.

“Huh.” He scratched his cheek. “They must have developed some sort of resistance over the millennia. That’s interesting.”

“Why didn’t it do this to us when we came in?” Rory asked, watching anxiously as the Doctor finished his tinkering and snapped the case closed.

The Doctor tapped the life support unit on his chest. “We’re invisible, remember?”

Amy groaned. Instantly all the Doctor and Rory’s attention reverted to her. She opened her eyes. “Oh, ow!” She rubbed the back of her head. “Did the monster get me again?” she asked.

“Again!” Rory exclaimed.

The Doctor left her to Rory and moved on to the others. He popped open the back of Erik’s ipod, then stopped and rooted in the Safari leader’s pockets. He pulled out his sonic screwdriver and brandished it up with a “Hah!” then soniced the ipod.

Erik blinked surprisingly pretty eyes open at him. He looked at him in confusion, then saw the sonic in his hand. “What are you doing with that thing?” he demanded in a rough, gravelly voice, his hand going to his head.

The Doctor grinned at him. “Saving your life. You can thank me later.”

The Doctor jumped up cheerfully and went around quickly sonicing all the rest of the ipods. The Trelwins took up defensive positions around the recovering humans, watching for danger.

—————

It didn’t take long to wake everyone up.

“We found the crashed transport,” the Doctor reported to Erik and Darvish. “And something else, a building,” he nodded, “on the other side of that rise, there’s a bowl shaped depression in the land.”

“What the hell is a _building_ doing out here?” Erik asked as all the other hunters climbed to their feet and righted their clothes and packs. He and Darvish kept half an eye on everyone as they listened to the Doctor’s report.

“I’m not entirely sure it _is_ a building,” the Doctor said.

That brought their attention back to him.

“Explain,” Darvish said.

The Doctor scrubbed the back of his neck. “It looks solid, the spires aren’t towers, no internal stairs or structure, the damaged ones show them to be solid all the way through.”

“Why build towers if you can’t use them?” Erik asked.

“They may have a different use,” the Doctor suggested.

Darvish gave him a gimlet look. “What _aren’t_ you saying?”

Amy and Rory straggled up to join them, Amy still protesting to Rory that she was all right.

“Have you told them about the survivors?” Rory asked, looking between the Doctor and the Safari leaders.

“Survivors?” Darvish’s interest perked up.

“I’m afraid there weren’t any. We found the bodies of a man, a woman, and a child. How many were there supposed to be?” the Doctor asked, his hands going into his pants pockets.

Darvish breathed out a rough breath. “Just the three.” He stabbed the point of his ax into the ground. “Damn.”

“I’m sorry.”

Darvish shook his head and waved it off. “It was always in the cards.” He reached up one long hand and rubbed at his forehead.

“So what do you think we should do about this building?” He pulled his hand down. “I certainly didn’t expect this ‘monster’ to live in a building,” he said wryly.

“We don’t know that it does, but it’s certainly an anomaly,” the Doctor said.

“ _Please_ don’t say, ‘let’s go poke it with a stick.'” Amy said.

“Well,” the Doctor said, bouncing on his toes. “There _is_ a hole in the wall.”

—————

The hunters, apprised of the situation, angry and embarrassed, settled their earpods firmly, and started marching resolutely up the rise, weapons out, scanning for danger, determined not to be so easily overcome again. The Trelwins shambled along beside them, eyes twitching everywhere, as nervous as cats in a frying pan.

Suddenly all three Trelwin stopped, then suddenly bolted forward to the front of the group. They turned and put up their overlong arms, shoving large hands forward, as if they were trying to ward the hunters off. They stank of tar, and there was a feeling of desperate panic in the air.

“What are they...” Darvish turned to ask Amy. Then his eyes widened as a thick grey cloud rolled up over the lip of the rise.

It spilled slowly over the edge, self-contained, slowly billowing in on itself. Almost crawling across the ground.

The hair on Amy's nape stood up. "Oh my god, what now?" She grabbed Rory's arm and backed up.

This wasn't a normal weather phenomenon, it slid across the ground, almost as if it was searching. It looked like it would flow by past them, on the north, but abruptly it changed course, heading right toward them.

It wasn't blown by the wind, there _was_ no wind.

"Incendiary bomb!" Darvish yelled. Eldon popped the cap on a grenade and lobbed it into the approaching mass. It exploded, fire blooming up in the cloud, licking at it, illuminating it from inside.

Despite Amy's expectations, there was no scream, not indication of life. The bomb left a scorched starburst on the dust as the cloud floated toward them, it was smaller, but not by much.

There was nothing to attack, guns and machetes were useless. "Flamethrower!" Erik yelled. "Again!" Darvish yelled after him. Jute cranked up his gun and stepped forward, swiping a long stream of flame back and forth over the front of the cloud. Eldon threw in three more incendiary grenades, one after the other. Each swipe and bloom of flame created a hiss of burning steam.

But the cloud only reduced slightly, its scattered streamers re-coalescing into the whole.

There was nowhere to run, no cover, and no time. The cloud kept sliding toward them, over the barren dust, like a hypercooled hockey puck. It stalked them as if it had intelligence. Bearing down.

“Retreat!” Darvish yelled.

"Scatter!" Erik bellowed.

They turned to run, and within three steps the cloud overtook them. It rolled over them, coiled around them, and seemed to clink. Amy felt her metal chute buckles suddenly seize up. Erik's second best gun snapped stuck to his harness, causing a misfire, everyone ducked, but their backpacks ruched up on their clips, cinching around ribs and groin, hobbling them.

Everyone’s hair stood straight up on their head, even Amy’s long hair flared out, making her look like exploded ketchup. Harnesses constricted around them, equipment stuck to each other, making it hard to move, the air pressed down, became heavier, their very muscles felt denser, weighted down, harder to move.

Moisture covered their skin, their tongues, their lungs.

Rory felt a chill pass over his brain, as if something touched him.

Then everyone’s ipods and life support units sparked out.

—————

Rory floated in the darkness, calm, quiet. The dark was soft, still, settling around him thick as concrete.

He could hear someone yelling but it didn’t seem to matter. He floated alone in the universe.

Suddenly the Doctor was in his head. “ _Wake Up!_ ” Rapidly his furious voice became clearer. “I can hold the meditation wave at bay, but only for a few minutes. You’ve got to wake up!”

Rory opened his eyes to see the Doctor’s face right in front of him. “That’s it! Concentrate on me, Rory. Stand up!” The Doctor pulled his hands away from Rory’s temples and pulled him to his feet. Rory struggled upright, feeling like he wanted to do nothing but sleep, drowsiness dragging him down.

The Doctor grabbed him up by an arm and started waltzing him around in the dust, kicking at his feet to make them move. Rory stiffened in instinctive withdrawal.

“That’s it, stay awake. Concentrate.” Everyone else was down, collapsed around them like sheaves of wheat. The three Trelwin were huddled together looking terrified.

“Concentrate Rory!” The Doctor suddenly whirled him around in a neck cracking twirl. Rory turned and glared at the Time Lord. “What are you doing?!” he demanded in outraged dignity.

The Doctor kicked at his feet to keep him moving. “Keeping you awake. I need you to pay attention and do something for me.”

“What’s...” Rory’s head lolled, his eyes fluttered closed, blank limpness overtaking him.

“Rory!” The Doctor pinched him on the bum.

Rory jerked awake. “For God’s _Sake_ , Doctor!” he cursed, galvanized.

“That’s it, stay awake. Pay attention. I need you to zone out.”

“What?” Rory glared at him, still being waltzed around like a marionette.

“When you watched over Amy for those 2,000 years, you must have learned the art of how to act without thinking, to just “be.” All those boring years locked in tombs and vaults, guarding, you’d go mad otherwise. Do that now. I need you, you’re the only one left who has a chance. I can’t keep waltzing you around forever. You’re heavy you know!”

Unfortunately, Rory understood exactly what he was talking about. “Stop.”

The Doctor stopped dancing him around and stood back. Rory felt the dragging drowsiness pull at him, weakening his knees. He looked down.

And just let it all go.

He looked back up, his face as calm as plastic. “What do you need?”

The Doctor grinned at him and clapped his hands. “Rory, you’re _brilliant!_ ”

He waved around at the safari group, all sprawled wherever they’d dropped. “The fog blew out all the ipods and support units. I should have altered the life support units too, made us all invisible, but I wasn’t thinking!” He smacked himself on the forehead. “There’s nothing more we can do for them now, until we get into that building and stop whatever’s doing this.” He looked up. “It’s just you and me now.” Rory stared at him calmly.

The Doctor scrubbed his hands over his face. He twirled a quick circle to make sure nothing else was sneaking up on them. Then he waved at Rory. “Help me move them together. We’ll have to leave them here, the Trelwins can watch over them.”

Rory didn’t argue. He simply walked over and picked up Amy, carried her over and lay her down beside Erik. The Doctor dragged Darvish over by the arms and laid him out. He apparently sent a thought to the Trelwins, they unhuddled, looked around nervously, then started dragging the others into the pile.

The Doctor wiped his hands off, looking at the helpless pile. Pickles and Jute, Bill and Eula were arrayed around the edges, looking disturbingly defenseless. The Trelwins took up positions on three sides of the pile of hunters. Looking outward, keeping watch. Shuffling, but determined.

The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck “That’s all we can do,” he muttered, almost to himself. They’d positioned Amy at the bottom of the pile, between Erik and Darvish, surrounded on all sides by the other hunters. “If we’re quick, nothing should happen to them,” he said, not very convincingly. He took one last look at the unprepossessing, skinny-limbed Trelwin crouched on all three sides, then turned resolutely away. “Come on.”

Rory leaned down and scooped up a machine gun one of the hunters had dropped. He saw the Doctor’s look.

“In case the cat is awake,” he said calmly, looping the strap over his head.

The Doctor nodded, but didn’t say anything else.

Fortunately, the cat was still asleep, sprawled by the open shuttle door. There was no sign of the fog. No sounds from the whole zone.

They climbed the pile of clattering rubble and debris, and inspected the hole they’d noticed earlier. It was partially blocked by a large rock. The Doctor set his shoulder to it and grunted. It didn’t shift. “Well, give us a hand!”

Rory slid his rifle to his back and pushed. Between them they dislodged the hundredweight stone and it rolled down into the building, crashing and bumping.

There was no response. No outcry. No snarl of monsters. Just echoes.

They crept inside.

Down the slope, into the dark. They finally found a level floor, somewhere below ground level. As they walked down the cracked corridor, they realized there was light coming from somewhere, filtering in dimly through the glassy obsidian walls.

The corridor seemed to lead in only one direction. There were no doors, like the outside it seemed to be completely seamless, solid.

A cracked archway opened at the end of the corridor, a crumbling false wall a few steps past it, light flickered beyond the edges.

They stepped out onto a floor of polished quartz, as they stepped from behind the wall Rory’s dispassionate gaze followed the quartz across a wide room, the crystal facets under their feet looked as if they extended far down into the earth.

The Doctor noticed the direction of his gaze. “It makes sense,” he whispered. “The zone is probably on top of a huge deposit of minerals, it’s what causes the electromagnetic currents.”

The Doctor clapped his hands and rubbed them briskly, beaming. “This is just what we need!” Rory looked up and followed the Doctor’s gaze. The walls were covered with equipment.

The Doctor leaped over, feet skidding on the floor, and bounded from panel to panel, examining everything. Burbling away with enthusiasm.

“If we can just find what controls the brainwave emanations we can shut down the meditation wave.”

Rory simply watched from beside the door, alert but calm. Clear as water. Not even surprised to find machinery in the middle of an alien jungle.

“Ah hah! Here!” The Doctor pulled a lever beside the far wall.

There was a horrendous grating sound, and the entire far wall started to rise. Stone grated on stone. The building trembled. Ancient stone knocked out of alignment by the shuttle crash protested the movement.

But the wall rolled upward, only an inch, scintillating multicolored light spilled out beneath, bringing the quartz floor beneath them alive with reflected rainbow colors.

The wall screeched and ground to a halt. “No! No, no, no!” The Doctor yanked on the lever several times, then gave up and threw himself on the floor, one eye peering under the crack. He slapped the floor. “Nothing!”

At least nothing lashed out and beheaded him Rory noted.

“Just white walls and colored lights.” He shuffled backwards, backside stuck in the air, his cheek pressed to the floor as he tried to get a better look.

Suddenly the ceiling cracked.

They both looked up.

Gears clashed and popped behind the walls, the entire structure shifted under the strain. A crack ripped across the room, one side of the ceiling dropping several inches. Only to shatter the false wall beside Rory.

The basalt wall cracked and crumbled, the ceiling fractured, and fell, raining boulders and debris.

“Rory!” the Doctor screamed and leapt. That’s all Rory saw before tons of black stone tumbled down around him.

—

* * *

_For more stories by this author click[here](http://archiveofourown.org/users/betawho/works)._  
 _Please take a moment to leave a comment in the box below._


	28. Chapter 28

The dust settled.  
  
The rumbling gradually ceased, the tinkle of small rocks bouncing down the rubble, the occasional crunch of a larger stone dropping.  
  
Rory coughed and shifted. He was in a clear space, his thigh uncomfortably pressed against a stone that fortunately hadn’t landed on him and crushed his leg.  
  
“ _Rory!_ ” the Doctor’s muffled voice yelled through the stone. He could hear scrabbling at the rocks.  
  
“I’m all right!” he yelled back.  
  
“Zone out!” the Doctor snapped immediately, sounding panicked.  
  
Rory’s eyebrows went up, he realized he’d slipped out of his meditative state. “It’s okay, I don’t think the wave works in here.”  
  
The frantic scrabbling sounds stopped. “Really?” He could practically hear the Doctor’s mind whirring through the rocks. “That’s great! I wonder how...”  
  
“Never mind that now,” Rory yelled back. “Are _you_ okay?”  
  
“Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just now there’s a rockslide where the door should be.” The scrabbling sounds resumed. “Can you see a way through?”  
  
Rory shoved himself up onto all fours, the roof didn’t allow him much more headroom. He looked around.  
  
Faint light still filtered through the walls and crystal floor. He’d fallen in a lee where a slab of the false wall had crashed and landed against the doorway behind it. The doorway was crushed, but mostly open. However, in front of him was a solid wall of rocks.  
  
He pushed, he prodded, he shoved, he poked, he caused several cascades of dust and pebbles, and one worrying shift that lowered the roof a few terrifying inches.  
  
“I don’t think I can get through, Doctor!” he yelled through the rubble.  
  
“I’m not having any better luck here, either!” the Doctor yelled back.  
  
“Can’t you use the sonic to shake something loose?” Rory yelled back, brushing grit out of his hair.  
  
“No, it shorted out with the rest of the electronics,” the Doctor yelled back.  
  
“I thought you shielded everything?” Rory yelled, a bit accusingly.  
  
“I shielded everything against electromagnetic radiation, not against creeping magnetic _mist_ ,” the Doctor yelled back, a bit defensively.  
  
“Then what are we...”  
  
“ _Wait!_ Wait, wait, wait!” the Doctor yelled from the other side of the rockfall. Rory could hear sounds of the Doctor’s boots scrambling, random rocks clinking and rolling as he kicked them. “If I can find the brainwave controls, I might be able to turn off the meditation wave. Then the others can come help.”  
  
A pause and more sounds of movement, Rory looked around, trying to see if he could find any hole he could widen, any rock that looked loose. “Aargh!” the Doctor yelled from the other room. “I can’t access it! I need a translation matrix. I need... Zeke! I need Zeke.  
  
“Rory, go get Zeke, he’s got longer arms, more leverage, between the two of you you might be able to move some of those stones. Make a way in.”  
  
Rory nodded and started to crawl out, then stopped. He stared at the threshold of the door, the demarcation where the crystal floor stopped. “Uh, Doctor? Where do you think the meditation wave starts, outside the complex, or outside this room?”  
  
“Oh, uh.” He could hear the Doctor stammering, even through the stone. “It _probably_ starts outside the complex,” he said hesitantly.  
  
“ _How_ probable?” Rory demanded.  
  
“About 50/50.”  
  
“Not something we want to risk then,” Rory yelled back.  
  
“Not really, no.” He could hear the Doctor shuffling around, “I don’t really fancy being stuck in here while the rest of you sleep yourselves to death. Otherwise,” he said in a forcedly brighter tone, “you could just carry everyone in here and they’d wake up. But I don’t suppose there’s room.”  
  
Rory looked around at the small cave he was currently kneeling in, it would be a squeeze, just with him and Zeke.  
  
“Right, guess I’d better zone out, just to be on the safe side. Don’t _touch_ anything while I’m gone!” he yelled back through the rock.  
  
“Right, right. I’ll just... _look_ at stuff,” the Doctor yelled back, not very reassuringly.  
  
Rory shook his head. God knows what the Time Lord’s curiosity would get him into if he didn’t hurry. The idea sent chills up his spine. “I’m going now!” he yelled.  
  
“Yes! Hurry back,” the Doctor’s voice came through distractedly.  
  
Rory shook his head, he knelt there on all fours in front of the door, took a deep breath, let the worries roll over him for a minute, then let it all go.  
  
—————  
  
He returned with Zeke an hour later. The Trelwin had seemed to understand he was needed, without words. Rory followed the waddling gray-dappled shape into the crumbled entryway. He felt the change as he crawled over the threshold onto the crystal floor, a sudden absence of a faint vibration against his mind that he hadn’t even been aware of outside.  
  
“Doctor?” he yelled calmly.  
  
“Rory!” The word was filled with such delight that he let his zen mode drop and grinned. He shook his head, no doubt the Doctor would have hugged him if he could.  
  
“I’ve brought Zeke.”  
  
“Great! I cleared away all the small stones and debris away from around that big stone on my side. The one by the mostly intact part of the wall, can you see it?”  
  
“Yeah, we’ve got it on this side too.” Zeke was already using his long hands to scoop away dirt and debris from the edges, yanking loose larger fist sized rocks that had been wedged too tightly for Rory to move.  
  
“Well, if you two pull, and I push, maybe we can move it enough to get through,” the Doctor yelled.  
  
Rory looked at Zeke, the Trelwin turned a blank, dappled-gray face to him, but seemed willing. “Alright, on three!” he yelled.  
  
He probed his fingers around the stone, searching for handholds. Zeke spread his large arms wide and grabbed both edges. “1 ,2, 3!”  
  
They pulled, the Doctor pushed. Dirt rained down, sharp shards, the rock didn’t move.  
  
“Right, again!” the Doctor yelled.  
  
“1, 2, 3...”  
  
They heaved, Zeke bent himself backward, bracing his foot hands on the surrounding stones. Rory hauled until he felt like his fingertips were going to scrub off. The stone shifted.  
  
And Zeke’s foot went right through the rocks beside it, letting in multicolored light from the room beyond.  
  
The Trelwin scrambled back and pressed his face right into the hole, almost kissing the Doctor who was doing the same thing from the other side.  
  
“Oh, hello, Zeke.” They both pulled back and started hauling away at the other debris, widening the hole. Zeke slipped through first, in a hole that looked smaller than his simian body could fit, apparently all those limbs were double jointed.  
  
It took several more minutes before the hole was big enough for Rory to crawl through, and even then it took both the Doctor and Zeke pulling on him to drag him through. He flopped onto the cracked crystal floor like a skinned fish.  
  
“Sorry about that,” the Doctor said. “I suppose we should have taken your chute off first.’  
  
Rory gave him an annoyed scowl.  
  
“Still,” the Doctor clapped his hands and twirled, “now that Zeke’s here we can turn off the defense systems before it can show us what _other_ nasties it has up its sleeve.”  
  
He grabbed the elderly Trelwin by the hand and led him over to a wall covered with strange equipment that looked more like a metal frieze made of swirled taffy than a machine. He coaxed the Trelwin to sit down, apparently had a brief telepathic discussion with him, then pulled out a lead and stuck it in the Trelwin’s ear.  
  
The Doctor sat down crosslegged in front of the Trelwin and touched both Zeke’s temples with his fingers. Then shut his eyes.  
  
And didn’t do anything. For a long time.  
  
After a while, Rory went over and started quietly widening the hole.  
  
—————  
  
Eventually the Doctor sat back, with a huge sigh. And a grin.  
  
“That’s got it!” Zeke blinked up at him, and the Doctor patted him on the shoulder. “Good work, old boy.”  
  
“What?” Rory asked, walking over, dusting his hands, asking for clarification.  
  
The Doctor clambered to his feet. “We turned off the security systems. The meditation wave should be down, the others should start waking up.”  
  
Rory smiled.  
  
The Doctor abruptly frowned. “Oh no, the cat!”  
  
He ran for the hole.  
  
“It’s okay, Doctor. I took care of the cat,” Rory said.  
  
The Doctor stopped and turned to look at him. His look of surprise abruptly fell into one of disappointment. “Oh, _Rory_...”  
  
Rory stared at him. “What? I didn’t _shoot_ it. I used the medical slings to drag it into the transport’s hold and locked it in. I didn’t want it waking up before our guys did.”  
  
The Doctor’s eyes brightened, and he bounded over and pounded Rory on the back. “Rory Williams! You are _magnificent!_ ” He beamed.  
  
Then his face froze. His eyes swiveled to Rory. “That might not be the only cat out there.”  
  
They both stared at each other, then ran for the hole. They dove and shimmied through, darting to their feet on the other side and running.  
  
Rory scooped up his machine gun. They burst out of the complex on top of the hill of scree beside the shuttle.  
  
They slithered down, half falling with their momentum. The jungle was suddenly alive with cheeping birds and jungle sounds.  
  
“No, no, no, no!” the Doctor chanted as they ran for the rim of the bowl, and the unconscious pile of Amy and the others on the other side.  
  
They crested the rise just in time to hear Amy say, “I like you guys, but really, there’s a thing called personal space...”  
  
They frantically scanned the area, the Doctor turned in a complete circle, looking. There were no deadly animals, no deadly plants, no ghostly apparitions, just dust, and a pile of disgruntled hunters. They both whooshed out a big breath and glanced at each other, grinning shamefacedly. Below them, Chitchi and Nelda were helping the recovering humans to their feet.  
  
Amy emerged from the bottom of the pile, looking wrinkled and creased and like she’d just woken up from a late night at a bad party.  
  
For some reason, that made the Doctor and Rory feel better.  
  
Erik spotted them. “Doctor! There you are. Would you mind explaining, again, what is going on?” he demanded in his loud voice.  
  
The Doctor looked over the group, reassuring himself. They were all helping each other up, looking a bit embarrassed and shaking it off by checking each other over, helping one another straighten clothes and packs, and find their weapons.  
  
Rory ran up and hugged Amy, and handed Pickles back his gun. The Doctor heard him explaining that there might be treecats in the area. The word spread quickly, and with that reassuring familiarity, the hunters quickly re-organized themselves and took up guard positions.  
  
Nelda hugged Amy’s leg with one arm, and Chitchi came and sat beside Rory.  
  
“Just another one of the Zone’s tricks,” the Doctor answered Erik as Darvish took a head count. “I’ve turned them off now, there shouldn’t be any more surprises.”  
  
Darvish’s head whipped around. “Turned them off?” he said. Several of the other hunters turned to stare at the Doctor.  
  
“We got inside the building,” the Doctor explained to all the stares. “There’s a wall we need your help to get through.”  
  
—————  
  
The Doctor and Rory, holding Amy’s hand, led them to the complex. They crested the rise and looked down on the doomed transport shuttle and the obsidian building in the center.  
  
The hunters ignored the building for the moment, concentrating on the crashed ship. They all trooped cautiously down the slope of the bowl, and solemnly examined the skeletal remains of the male, and the wreck of the transport. Darvish and Erik checked the cockpit for the black box, and could hear the snarls and thumps of the treecat in the hold. The others solemnly surveyed the remains of the woman and child.  
  
“Let’s get this over with,” Darvish said grimly.  
  
With a few hunter hand signals, Erik and Darvish gathered the others together. They left Bill, Pickles, Eula, and the two younger Trelwins, to guard the entrance; to keep an eye out for treecats, or anything else that might interfere with their mission, and to guard their escape route, just in case.  
  
The rest of them stalked quietly into the complex, unnerved by the shifting black light and heavy dead silence.  
  
“We need to clear this away before anything else,” Rory said as they reached the caved in entrance. Zeke scuttled back through the hole to the control chamber, but the hunters were all too big to follow. Erik and Darvish were both impossibly wide shouldered and large, Eldon was built solid and not likely to fit, and even Jute, lanky as he was, was still very wide in the shoulders.  
  
“You all take this side, we’ll get the other,” the Doctor said. “We don’t want to get trapped in there when we try to get through the wall. This all came down when we tried to open it,” the Doctor waved a finger up at the shattered roof that canted over the wall, the broken stones. “I figure we can take the stones from this less shattered end and use them to prop up the other side,” the Doctor instructed.  
  
“You forget,” Darvish said, “some of us are miners.” He waved a thick thumb between him and Eldon.  
  
“Yes,” the Doctor said, looking surprised. “Quite right.”  
  
“What’s behind this wall you keep mentioning?” Eldon said, eyeing the stones as if choosing which to move first.  
  
“I’m not sure. At the very least, it’s a clue to the monster,” the Doctor said.  
  
They all looked at each other uncomfortably. As much hassle as it had been to get here, it was unnervingly quiet. With the sure instinct of hunters, they all silently agreed it was too easy.  
  
Darvish looked at the skinny hole the Doctor, Rory and Zeke had managed to open up. “Well, I’m not getting through that. We could try widening it with a grenade.”  
  
“Uh,” Rory held up a finger. “I’d really rather you didn’t do that. The roof came down on me last time, and most of this building seems to be made of glass and crystal, there’s no telling what a grenade would do.”  
  
“Besides,” the Doctor said, clapping his hands. “We don’t want to go blowing things up until we have an idea of what it _is_.”  
  
“If it’s the monster,” Erik growled, “then surely blowing it up is an option.”  
  
“Depends on what kind of monster it is. Or even if it’s here. All we know at the moment is that there’s a control center through there, and a mysterious door.”  
  
“Best to move gently,” Jute said in his quiet voice. “Besides,” he lifted his rifle. “If we need to, I can always burn through the door with this.” Rory’s eyebrows popped up. Jute shrugged. “I can adjust it for flame thrower or welding torch.”  
  
Rory nodded, looking impressed.  
  
“Are we going to stand here and talk all day?” Amy demanded, having listened with uncharacteristic silence.  
  
Zeke’s head poked back in through the hole, looking at them. “Right!” the Doctor said, under stares from both Amy and the Trelwin. “You lot start here, we’ll start on the other side.” He knelt down and crawled through the hole, Rory and Amy right behind him.  
  
—————  
  
Amy admired the crystal floor, and looked uneasily at the small gap at the bottom of the far wall.  
  
“What’s behind there?” she asked.  
  
“We won’t know until we get these rocks cleared and get the others in here. Give us a hand,” Rory said, as he and the Doctor looked for some loose stone they hadn’t already cleared away. Zeke was already tugging at a large boulder, his foot hands splayed on the crystal floor for balance.  
  
Amy shrugged and joined them, throwing a curious glance at the array of strange controls on the far wall.  
  
“Right, let’s concentrate on this one,” the Doctor said, indicating the large boulder they hadn’t been able to move before. They could hear clinks and grunts on the other side.  
  
They each found a grip and pulled, Amy shoving at it with her long legs. “Let’s see if we can shimmy it,” the Doctor said, brushing his hands on his trousers. “Maybe we can wiggle it loose.”  
  
They concentrated on one side, trying to slide the stone sideways out of the pile, this seemed to be the stone that was locking all the rest in place. They could see the large hole in the roof it had dropped from.  
  
They grunted, and heaved, sweat started to trickle down their necks. Something shifted. It wasn’t them.  
  
Suddenly the far wall gave a wrenching scream and jerked up a foot. They all whirled and stared. Scintillating, multi-colored light spilled through, it jerked and coruscated, intense and _active_.  
  
“What did you _do_?” Rory yelled to the others beyond the rockpile. They all stepped back, the floor became increasingly brilliant under their feet.  
  
“Do that again!” the Doctor yelled. He bent over peering into the brightness.  
  
“Doctor,” Rory protested in a fierce whisper, “we don’t have a clear path out of here yet, and the others aren’t here.”  
  
“Yeah,” Amy said, staring at that glowing, flickering, _moving_ light. “I’d like some guns.”  
  
“What’s happening?” Darvish yelled.  
  
“The wall’s opening,” the Doctor yelled back distractedly, starting to creep forward toward the wall, still bent over. Rory grabbed him by the sleeve.  
  
“Wait until we’re in there!” Erik yelled. “Rory, keep a glove on him!”  
  
“I’m trying!” Rory yelled back, but the Doctor kept flapping his arm at him, shaking him off.  
  
“Doctor,” Amy started.  
  
The wall popped, and creaked, and suddenly shot up into the ceiling as pressure was released on the mechanism inside.  
  
They stopped and stared, bathed in a rainbow of bright flashing colors.  
  
“What _is_ that?” Rory asked.  
  
Beyond the wall, in a completely white, sterile room, floated a giant, complex maze of colorful lightning.  
  
Rory blinked, his eyes dazzled. Amy made choking noises beside him.  
  
It looked like a giant brain, with all the matter taken away, leaving only the flashing, neural pathways of colorful energy. A fantastically complex network of lightning of all different colors and sizes, sizzling, traveling, interconnecting, they could _see_ thoughts flashing from point to point, each flare probably another person turned off.  
  
“What the hell _is_ that thing?” Rory demanded

—

* * *

_For more stories by this author click[here](http://archiveofourown.org/users/betawho/works)._  
 _Please take a moment to leave a comment in the box below._


	29. Chapter 29

The Doctor stared, a look of wonder on his face. “It’s Hanaii,” he said.

“What's Hanaii?” Amy demanded.

He turned and looked at them with an amazed look on his face, then immediately turned back to the “monster.”

“It’s Hanaii technology.” He waved a long, admiring hand at it. “The Hanaii were the most amazing energy engineers. They built the most fantastically complex machines out of pure energy.” He stepped forward and Rory grabbed him.

He looked back. “The Hanaii disappeared eons ago, back before Gallifrey even mastered time travel. We’d come across some of their technology once in a while, but no one ever knew what happened to them.”

“So, they were electrical engineers?” Rory asked, trying to get his mind around it.

The Doctor drooped and stared at him despairingly. “They weren’t _electricians_ , Rory,” he said in disgust. “It’s not like wiring a toaster.”

Rory frowned and looked behind him, “Then why all the equipment?”

The Doctor shrugged, not looking, still mesmerized. “Even potters need a potter’s wheel.” He turned and looked at them, the flashing lights of the monster echoing in his eyes. “They still had to construct the devices, they didn’t just conjure it directly out of their heads. But once constructed, the devices were self-sustaining.”

The Doctor turned back to the machine with admiring eyes. “This, this takes unbelievable skill, and elegance.”

“Well, this elegant, machine of yours is killing people,” Amy said with dampening vehemence. “Can you switch it off?”

The Doctor stared at the scintillating brain for a few more minutes, then grinned, rubbing his hands together. “I can try.”

He turned and lifted his nonexistent eyebrows at them, eyes gleaming at the challenge; he dashed over to the undamaged wall of machines, he started cataloging, poking and prodding.

Amy turned around, watching him, and noticed Zeke, huddled against the back wall, shaking, staring at the giant brain with wide, terrified eyes. It was the most expression she’d ever seen out of a Trelwin. He stank not of tar, but of some stark, rancid, undertone, as if he was beyond terror and trying to be very quiet about it.

“What’s wrong with him?” she asked.

The Doctor glanced over, distractedly. “How would you feel if you suddenly came face to face with your people’s devil?”

Amy glared at him, and walked over to try and comfort the Trelwin.

There was a sudden shift, and rattle, and abruptly the entire far end of the rockslide tumbled down. The hunters jumped through, weapons raised, the pilot spark on the end of Jute’s flamethrower shone bright in the dust.

“What the hell?” Erik said. He stared at the glowing room, the crystal floor, and the bright, flashing, energy brain floating in the far room.

“What the bloody hell is going on here?” he boomed.

The Doctor spun around, waved an elegant hand, and said, “There, gentlemen, is your ‘monster’.”

Jute just stared, Eldon glared uncomprehendingly, Erik glowered and looked like he wanted to shoot something,

Darvish cocked his head and studied it, his eyes darting as he followed the zipping paths of multicolored lightning.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Rory,” the Doctor said. “Over to you.” He turned back to the equipment wall and went back to work.

Rory explained that it was an ancient bit of alien technology. The Doctor snorted at that bit of over-simplification.

“Can it see us?” Jute asked, keeping his flamethrower trained on it.

“No,” the Doctor said distractedly, still working the wall of machines, stretching up on tiptoe to reach the higher controls. “It’s just a machine. It’s doing whatever it was programmed to do.”

“And what’s that?” Darvish asked as he walked up beside him and studied the wall, with its strange conglomeration of melted metal swirls, buttons, levers and sliders.

“From the evidence,” the Doctor said, frowning as he traced long fingers over a section of swirl. “Some sort of brainwave modification.”

“Why would anyone do that?” Erik asked, annoyed.

The Doctor looked over his shoulder. “Who knows? Social experiment? Population control? Doomsday weapon? Could be anything.” He went back to tinkering.

“But why did it suddenly start to affect humans?” Eldon asked.

The Doctor didn’t bother to look around this time. “The transport.” He reached higher to manipulate another control, stretching on his toes. “The ‘deaths’ started happening just after the transport crashed into the building.” He came down off his toes and moved to another piece of equipment. He nodded distractedly over to the brain. “It must have thought it was being attacked. So it scanned the ‘aggressors’ and incorporated them into its program.”

He turned and looked at them with dark eyes. “I doubt they were killed by treecats, not by their positions and condition. Probably by the ghosts, or some variation of them.” He laid a hand down on a freestanding piece of equipment. “I’m going to need Zeke.”

They all snapped out of their listening trance.

Amy glanced up from the Trelwin. “I don’t think he’s in any condition to help,” she said.

The Doctor wandered over and hunkered down in front of the Trelwin. Zeke didn’t take his eyes off the ‘monster’.”

The Doctor slid a hand in front of his face and cut off his view. He apparently communicated something to the Trelwin. The elderly gray alien turned his eyes up to him, gradually his tension eased, the blankness of his expression returned. He stood up, all the way up.

All the humans stood back a bit in surprise. Standing, the Trelwin was seven feet tall, thin as a rake, and looked a lot like the ghostly apparitions that made up the electric fence.

Amy and Rory shared a wide-eyed glance.

The Doctor took the Trelwin’s hand and led him over to the machine.

—————

The Doctor led Zeke over to the control console, sat him down, and plugged him in. He sat down crosslegged in front of the crouching Trelwin. He rubbed his fingertips together. “This may take a while.”

He touched Zeke’s temples, and closed his eyes.

They all watched for a moment, they could see the Doctor’s eyes flickering rapidly behind his eyelids, but nothing else happened.

“Right!” Rory said, clapping his hands and startling everyone. “He’s going to be out of it for a while. We may as well make use of the time.”

Before Rory could suggest anything, Darvish’s stomach rumbled, loudly, like two dragons fighting. The short Safari leader looked down at his own midsection, then started laughing. He rubbed a long hand over his face.

“We may as well set up camp and eat,” he said. “And I want the others to take a turn in here. We don’t have cameras or recording equipment, so I want everyone to see this thing,” he waved at the flashing, floating brain. “No one will believe us otherwise.”

—————

It was a while later when the Doctor opened his eyes. He let out an “Aargh!” and pulled at his hair, startling everyone.

Bill and Jute had switched out, and Pickles and Eula had traded places with Eldon. They were all sitting around, waiting.

“I can’t get _in!_ ” The Doctor yelled in frustration.

He stared up at all their startled faces.

Amy got up and brought him over a strip of jerky and a canteen. He ripped into the strip of meat and washed it down with a swig from the canteen. Amy handed Zeke a pemmican brick.

“What’s the problem, Doctor?” Rory asked.

The Doctor glowered and masticated his jerky, frowning like a sulky boy. He swallowed.

“The program is completely self-contained. There’s no way in, no password I can replicate. The original programmers, with their unique brainwave signatures, are long dead. I can’t reprogram it!” He jerked his jerky irritably over his shoulder at the Hanaii construct. Zeke, calmer now, slowly chewed his dry pemmican brick and watched.

Erik lifted his huge gun. “Then we blow it up.”

The Doctor waved that suggestion off. “It wouldn’t work, it’s energy, it’s tied into the very power sphere of the planet. You’d have to destroy the planet and every living thing on it.”

The Doctor got up and paced. Mumbling to himself and waving his jerky in counterpoint to his thoughts. The others watched, as colored lightning reflected on the crystal facets in the floor and bathed them all in shifting rainbow colors.

“What was it originally intended to do?” Erik asked, hoping some clarity would spark an idea.

The Doctor looked up. “It was designed to suppress, and suspend, those brainwaves and electrical impulses that lead to violent behavior. Not a bad aim in itself.”

“Then why does it affect inventors and artists?” Jute asked.

The Doctor kept circling. “Because what they forgot,” he said, gesturing with his hands. “Is that the brainwaves for violence, and inspiration are the same frequency.” He saw their disbelieving stares. “Oh, not in intent, but in form. It’s that huge surge of frantically intense and focused thought that they were targeting.” The Doctor demonstrated by squeezing his fingers together like a cage.

“But we’ve seen Trelwin behave violently,” Rory protested. “Chitchi saved me from that grub.”

The Doctor waved that off. “Self-defense instinct, the protection of self and self’s own, is a different thing. Besides, they’d be fools to mess with that.”

“It seems they were fools anyway,” Darvish said, resting his hands on the upturned hilt of his ax.

The Doctor looked up, then around at the deserted complex, the jungle and world by extension. He nodded, sadly. “The second they turned it on, they doomed themselves.”

“So how do we stop it?” Erik asked.

The Doctor turned and stared at the beautiful alien device. Each flash and zip of current representing another life turned off, another person possibly falling to his death from the very trees they called home.

He glared at it. Then abruptly his face went blank, his eyes flickered. Suddenly he started to grin. He turned to the others and rubbed his hands together.

“I’m going to bung a rock at it.”

—

* * *

_For more stories by this author click[here](http://archiveofourown.org/users/betawho/works)._  
 _Please take a moment to leave a comment in the box below._


	30. Chapter 30

“When you said you were going to bung a rock at it, Doctor, this isn’t what I thought you meant!” Rory yelled down.

All the safari group was high up in the trees, they’d hauled a huge boulder, the size of a car, up into the tree using a complex system of ropes, pulleys, and other smaller boulders roped in as counterweights. (Yblins didn’t go anywhere without rope, and coils of rope had been dug out of the bottom of every backpack and from the camping supplies.)

Despite the relatively clear area around the complex, the tall redwood trees actually overarched it, like a cathedral, especially on the far side.

They’d pried loose one of the forest’s huge boulders using young trees as levers, and managed to drag it, using the base of the trees as pulleys, to their chosen tree. Darvish and Erik had shown an unexpected aptitude for engineering. The Doctor had chosen a tower on the far side, farthest from the control room, as their target.

They’d found no other rooms inside, no other doors, inside or out. The structure appeared to be all one solid piece. “You’d think a research complex would have other labs, offices, something,” Darvish said.

“Maybe it does,” the Doctor said, as they surveyed the placement and angle of the boulder, to insure it would hit their designated target. “Maybe they can only be detected or opened by some electrical sense we don’t have. More likely, it’s all solid though.”

“What would be the point of that?” Darvish asked, as he helped the Doctor finish his survey, as the others jockeyed for position in the trees, carefully altering the angle and positions of the lines under Erik’s direction.

“It’s a transmitter,” the Doctor said, looking back and up admiringly at the star shaped, spired structure. “The whole thing, the base, the towers, the crystal connecting down into the minerals of the area, even the dish shape,” he waved around at the perfectly circular depression they were standing in, “all designed to transmit the device’s signal throughout the world.”

Darvish turned and gave him a grave, considering look. “So when it was attacked, and damaged, it fought back,” he commented. The Doctor nodded. “So you’re going to replicate that accident.” The Doctor nodded, clapped his hands and rubbed them together eagerly.

Darvish looked at him like he was crazy. “What makes you think it will scan _you_? We’re _all_ helping.”

“Ah, but it already has humans in its database. As long as you keep your mind on what you’re doing it can’t touch you. I’m the only new element. My brainwaves are different. I’m betting it will single out that difference and focus on me.”

“What about after it scans you? What if it sends ghosts after us, like you said it did with the crash survivors? We don’t have ipods any more.”

“I turned off the defense systems, so that shouldn’t happen.”

“If it does?” Darvish asked.

The Doctor gave him a grim look. “Run.”

—————

They’d managed to manually haul the huge boulder sixty feet up into the tree and were all scattered through the branches holding the lines taught.

“Get a move on, Doctor!” Amy yelled down. “This thing’s heavy!”

She and Bill were holding onto a heavy line that was wrapped twice around the main bole, keeping tension to hold the boulder pulled back, awaiting release. Jute, Eldon, Pickles and Eula were arrayed around them above and below, holding side lines to angle it in the proper direction, while Erik and Rory held tension on the other main line on the branch on the other side of the bole.

Lines creaked, the tension was tight enough to break bones. A light darkling wind ruffled their hair, but no one could spare a hand to brush it out of their eyes.

It had taken all of them to manhandle the stones. With no one left to stand guard, their eyes darted around, keeping watch, they all had their weapons slung across their backs.

The Doctor and Darvish climbed up the ladder rope left dangling by the first hunter who’d leapfrogged, lumberjack style, up the tree. Darvish swarmed up using only his hands and powerful shoulders. The Doctor braced a foot on the bole and climbed up knot by knot.

Up in the tree the air sang through the lines. Sweat dotted faces, hands ached, but everyone refused to acknowledge it. Baby Bear, Mama Bear, and Papa Bear, (the three graduated size boulders which the Doctor had dubbed, as they added successively larger ones to help haul the boulder higher into the tree,) swayed slightly in the breeze to one side, like a giant’s bracelet.

“You sure this is going to work?” Erik demanded, as he strained against his rope, one foot bracing the rope against the treetrunk to add more leverage.

The Doctor shoved his hair out of his face with both hands. The complex looked smaller from up here. A plate sized jello mold of sharp black glass, already half crumbled. The bowl shape around it even more apparent from this height. Their chosen onion domed spire was right in front of them, radiating off to one side of the main building on a corner where the debris would fall away from the building, rather than on it and chance damaging the equipment.

“It’ll work,” the Doctor said, with more confidence than Rory’s expression showed at the comment. The Doctor ignored him. “We just have to make sure everyone releases at the same time, and nothing snags.”

Erik grunted. “Leave that to us. We know ropes.”

“I’m sure you do. Watch out for whiplash too, when the lines release,” the Doctor added, distractedly as he concentrated on the building below.

Erik glared at him.

The Doctor turned his back to Darvish. “Check my chute, will you Darvish?” he asked quietly. But not quite quietly enough.

Rory’s head whipped to him. “What are you doing?” he demanded.

The Doctor ignored him as he checked his chute clips and straightened his shirt. He could feel Darvish tugging at the chute sewn into his jacket.

He didn’t look at Rory. “I’m making sure the monster goes after me, not you,” he said quietly. Rory started shaking his head.

Darvish patted the Doctor on the shoulder in confirmation. The Doctor scooted over the limb in front of Erik. “Hold tight,” he said quietly. He leaned over, grabbed the taught line that led to the boulder and swung out. He wrapped his legs around the line and started sliding outward, handing himself along the taut rope to the suspended boulder.

“What are you doing!” Amy screamed.

The Doctor didn’t answer her, he just kept sliding, hand over hand, pant legs ruching up, down the line until his bum hit the boulder. It wobbled under him.

“Doctor!” Amy screamed. She juttered, wanting to go drag him away, but not daring to let go of her rope.

He grabbed the main support rope and stood up, feet straddling the other lines on the stone. It tilted and wallowed under him. He half turned, “It’s the only way, Amelia. We’ve only got one chance at this. I have to make sure the monster fixates on me. The only way is to ensure it thinks I’m the invader.”

“You’re going to get yourself killed!” she yelled back. Her face was red, part from anger, part from fear, part from the strain of holding the rope so tightly.

“I’ll parachute off at the end. I’ll be fine!”

“You’re not going to have far to deploy your chute,” Bill yelled over.

“I’ll deploy it as I jump, it’ll serve partly as drag chute, partly to slow my descent. I can survive a harder fall than a human can, it’s not that far down.” He repressed the shudder that ran down his spine as he remembered other falls. This was nothing compared to those, he reassured himself. Not nearly as far down. And he had a chute, and he was aiming for that thicket of ferns to cushion his fall. Nothing could go wrong.

“You better be right, you’re the only one we’ve got that can reprogram that thing,” Erik yelled in a gruff voice that showed a bit more concern than he probably cared for.

“Then we better get started,” the Doctor yelled back. He looked around, when he wasn’t concentrating on the height, there was actually a magnificent view from up here, unobstructed by trees or buildings, suspended in midair with a cold breeze ruffling his jacket, he could see in every direction, a panoramic view of the whole area; complex, trees, ferns, crashed transport, the surrounding bowl. He grinned, suddenly feeling free, looking forward to the high swing and release, like a kid on a swingset. “It’ll be fun!”

“Is he really that mad?” he heard Erik whisper over his shoulder to Rory.

“Yes.”

The Doctor grinned. “On three!” he yelled back, positioning himself in front of the load rope, feet on either side of the ropes holding up the boulder, hands gripping the upright rope behind him with both hands.

He heard them all inhale at once. “One.” Ropes creaked, he could hear knives swishing out of sheathes. “Two!” The whole world stood still, except for the slight twist of the boulder underneath him. “THREE!” He braced himself. Knives slashed. And suddenly he was soaring.

G-force and wind whipped his hair back behind him and stung his eyes, his cheeks flattened and flapped as the load line pressed into his spine.

“Whoooohooooo!” He could no more hold back that primal scream than he could stop the huge grin that plastered over his face.

His stomach tingled and dropped as the stone plummeted down and swung powerfully forward, building momentum, the black glistening onion dome rushed toward him, he tensed, he hoped he’d calculated the trajectory right, or he was about to get bodyslammed into a solid ton of black glass.

The boulder tipped up at the end of its rope, he crouched and bent his knees. The lower half of the boulder crashed into the top of the tower.

Instantly he was airborne, shattered chunks of black glass exploding all around him. He rammed his hands forward, his chute deployed, jolting him. He swung down, and aimed for the ferns. A loud CRACK sounded behind him as the tower broke, and a chunk of black glass whistled past, slicing a gash in his chute. He dropped. He overshot the ferns, and yowled as he headed for the spiky bushes. He drew in his arms and legs to protect himself and prepared to roll. Something snagged him and whipped him backward and up.

The world flipped. Everything tangled. He fell and bounced, upside down, chute lines and parachute silk wrapped around him. Parachute lines completely encased one leg, cutting off the circulation. Parachute silk blew into his mouth. His leg screamed.

He batted the silk out of his face, digging his way out of the billowing folds as he swung upside down.

He hung from the only sapling in the whole area. He crossed his arms and dangled, hair streaming down, and watched the safari group run toward him, looking as if they were running on the sky.

Zeke swarmed up the small tree and started to work him loose. Darvish didn’t bother, he just unlimbered his ax and chopped down the young tree with two strokes.

The Doctor landed like a Sunsail cocoon. He could hear Bill laughing. Erik grumbled about paperwork. He could feel Amy bouncing with suppressed chortles as she and Rory helped cut him free.

Suddenly there was a huge blast of blinding invisible light. They all stopped, frozen in shock. “I _felt_ that,” Erik said, like a man who’d just been punched in the solarplexus.

The Doctor’s head tingled. “That’s it! The scan. Get me out of here!” He struggled against the chute lines. Eula reached in and yanked his jacket off him; slapped the main buckle and freed him.

The Doctor bolted up and ran like a shot, the others dashing after him.

They all scrambled up the scree and into the hole, ignoring the new landslide of shards and boulders on the far side that was still rumbling down. The far tower fell with a crash that bounced them all on their heels.

They ran down the hallway, new fractures opening up cracks of light into the tunnel, and skidded through the debris into the control room. The brain was flashing faster and brighter than ever.

The Doctor’s head felt like it was full of ants.

The Doctor ran for the control wall and interface. “Zeke!” he yelled. The older Trelwin scrambled after him at a fast lope, knowing what was needed of him.

Behind him, Nelda entered the control room for the first time, and saw the monster.

—————

Time slowed down.

The monster, the bane of her species, the thing that had almost killed her gentle father.

Chitchi looked at it dispassionately. Everyone else piled in behind them, concentrating on the Doctor and Zeke.

Nelda looked up at the giant brain, the beautiful colors, the zip and sizzle of energy, her eyes widened, her lips curled back over her large teeth, hate, she charged forward, arms waving over her head, hands curled like claws, attacking.

And abruptly fell flat on her face on the crystal floor, arms still outstretched over her head.

"Nelda!" Amy yelled. The Doctor’s head whipped around. She and Rory ran over and turned the simian over. Rory laid his head on her white suede chest. "No heartbeat." He knelt and immediately started CPR.

Amy looked around in despair. "We don't have any life support units!"

Eula rushed up, dropping off his backpack and rummaging around in his larger medical kit, he pulled out a mouth funnel and placed it over Nelda's mouth and nose, since Trelwin mouths were too wide, and noses too flat for regular human CPR.

"Hurry up, Doctor, and stop this thing before it claims any more lives," Jute yelled, looking on the creature that had been raised with him as part of his family.

The Doctor dithered, looking back and forth from Nelda to the control wall. His brain was starting to itch.

"Doctor!" Erik barked, startling the Time Lord. "That thing is already processing you, if it closes before you get in, we're all done for."

"Yes, right," the Doctor said distractedly, he abruptly ran down the control wall. "Bring her over here!" He ignored the scratching on his brain that was starting to become painful.

He touched a metallic swirl, and a long slab extruded from the bottom of the wall.

Erik and Darvish didn't waste any time, they ran over, knelt, picked up the simian's body and ran her over to the slab, Eula and Rory right alongside, ready to start CPR and respiration again as soon as they laid her down.

They resumed their ministrations with minimal interruption. The Doctor pulled a long, V shaped cowl out of the wall, and laid it over her head and down her chest and abdomen. He did something to the wall and the cowl started to lift and fall, a faint whooshing sound showing she was breathing. After a moment, her eyes blinked open. Before she could jump up, Zeke and Chitchi were there. A huge melange of scents rolled off them, as they held her shoulders down.

The humans backed away, waving at their faces.

Nelda calmed, and lay back under whatever they were telling her.

The Doctor winced as the scratching became jabs.

"They were bound to have emergency medical equipment of their own, in case of accidents," the Doctor explained, his voice starting to sound labored, and high.

"They've got her," Erik said. "Now, quick, Doctor. Get in there!"

"Yes." The Doctor turned, hands wringing, harried. Trying to be sure he hadn’t forgotten anything as the jabs intensified, probed deeper. It was getting harder to think. "Amy, Rory,” his voice squealed a bit, “if the monster gets me before I stop it, get back to the Tardis, the emergency protocols will take you home after five hours."

Amy shook her head, protesting. 'If it turns you off, won't you just regenerate?"

"No,” he blinked, and shook his head against the pain, pressing the heel of his hand against one eyebrow, forcing himself not to block the connection, “that requires residual electrical impulses in the body, this stops that," he flung a hand at the floating brain. He bent over, starting to pant.

"Can't we use this on you?" Rory asked, pointing down at the slab Nelda still lay on.

"That only works on Trelwins." He started to sweat.

"DOCTOR!" Erik bellowed.

"Yes, right.” He gathered his focus. “Wish me luck, Ponds." The Doctor turned and beckoned. "Zeke." He winced and squeaked, squinting his eyes.

The gray Trelwin left his friends and loped over, he crouched and allowed the Doctor to hook him up. The Doctor fumbled a bit, but got him attached. He was laboring now, his head felt like it was on fire. He plopped down on his bum and reached blindly for the Trelwin’s temples.

And then he seemed to stop breathing.

"Doctor!" Amy yelled. Erik grabbed her before she could grab the Doctor. Rory quickly knelt and put his ear to the Time Lord's back. Amy watched, eyes wide...

They all held their breaths.

Rory leaned back and held his hand under the Time Lord's nose. Then he sat back. "His hearts are still beating, and he's breathing, just really shallow."

Rory held his hand in front of Zeke's nose. "Him too, but he seems to be breathing normally."

The Doctor sat, pale as death, sweating, barely breathing. He looked as tense as elastic. His arms apparently held up by main force.

They all stood around, and stared at the Doctor, stared at the brain, trying to see if there were any changes.

Nelda brushed off the cowl, despite Eula's protests. She turned and looked at the brain dispassionately, then deliberately turned her back on it, sitting, watching Zeke and the Doctor. Chitchi ambled over and sat at the intersection of the control room and the sterile white room beyond, watching the giant floating brain, thinking his own thoughts.

Forty minutes in, Rory thought the air of the room was so tight it would crack. He stayed beside the Doctor, keeping an ear cocked for the rhythm of his shallow breathing. He’d carefully loosened the Time Lord’s precious bow tie. He'd have liked to keep a hand on his wrist to check for a pulse, but didn't dare touch him.

Nelda ambled over and took Jute's hand. The laconic, soft-spoken hunter crouched down and hugged her tightly.

Erik drummed his fingers on the butt of his rifle.

Brilliant colors flashed around them as the brain zapped and sizzled behind them, more active than ever. Purple, hot pink, white, neon blue.

Suddenly there was a flash of crystalline dark, a wash of black behind their vision that flew away, leaving shadowy afterimages.

The Doctor slouched, melting bonelessly, and toppled over backwards. His hands falling from Zeke's face. Rory barely caught him before his head cracked down on the crystal floor.

He was pale as wax, blue veins showing in his throat and eyelids, his baby boy lips and eyebrows sitting awkwardly on the mask of his ancient bones. Amy scrambled over, a whining scream reverberating in the back of her throat, loud in the silence, as she threw herself down beside her Raggedy Man.

“Doctor?” she said, almost timidly.

The Doctor opened his eyes and raised a hand to his head. "I have got the _worst_ headache," he commented.

He inhaled deeply and blood and vitality seemed to flow back into him. He sat up and rubbed both hands over his face, and demanded a canteen. Rory gave him his. The Doctor took it and poured the water over his head.

Amy stood up, watching him, unusually subdued.

Pandemonium broke out, sighs of relief, questions, and demands. Erik's voice boomed out over the babble. "Did you do it?"

The Doctor looked up, dripping, he took a swig of the canteen, then handed it back to Rory. He noticed his bow tie dangling undone and retied it.

Erik gritted his teeth at the Time Lord’s delaying tactics. “DOCTOR?!”

The Doctor jumped up and shook his wet hair, spry as a thistle, although Rory saw him wince at the headache.

"All done. The tiger's teeth have been pulled. No more problems here." The Doctor grinned, that particularly infuriating grin that no one trusted.

Zeke blinked his eyes open. The Doctor held down a hand and helped him up.

Everyone stood in silence, shellshocked.

"Is that it?" Rory asked.

"Yep," The Doctor said, shoving his hands in his pockets with a satisfied air, collar limp and soggy. He bounced lightly on his toes.

Everyone looked at everyone else, not sure what to do with themselves.

The lightning brain still pulsed with complex flashes of activity, throwing multicolored light over the room.

"But," Rory protested, looking between it and the Doctor. "How do we know if it worked?"

"Dunno," the Doctor shrugged lazily. "I guess we'll have to test it." He abruptly turned and slapped Amy.

Amy stared at him, mouth agape, a red handmark showing on her cheek. "Why you, son of a..!" she screamed and leaped at him. "I'll kill you for that!" She slapped him with one clawed hand, he whirled with the force of the slap, ducking and laughing as Rory struggled to restrain her, her hands still slapping at him. "I'm going to wring your neck with that bow tie!" she yelled.

Rory grabbed her around the waist and picked her up, she kicked at the Doctor with her long legs. The Doctor scuttled aside and laughed.

"Well," Erik said, arms crossed over his chest. "I guess it worked."

—————

They gathered everyone back inside the control room, including those who had gone outside on guard. It had been a long day for all of them.

"We may as well sleep here for the night," Erik said in his rumbling voice, addressing the entire group. "The building is safe enough, and easy to protect from predators. We can start back in the morning."

“We can collect the flight recorder, and whatever personal items we can find in the morning from the transport.” Darvish said, rubbing his face. “We can bag up the bodies and take them home, their relatives deserve that much at least.”

“What about the treecat?” Rory asked.

They all turned to stare at him. He shrugged. “I locked it in the hold, we can’t just leave it there to starve.”

“We could tranq it,” Jute suggested in his quiet voice, a hand still on Nelda’s shoulder. "Knock it out for a day or two, then leave the hold door open. That would give us enough head start, and he'd probably wake up hungry enough that finding water and food would be his first priority, rather than following us."

Bill nodded beside him in agreement, and started rummaging in her beltpouches. "I'm pretty sure I've got a few darts that survived."

Suddenly all three Trelwin sat up straight, their eyes darted around, if they’d had fur it would have been bristling.

“What’s wrong with them?” Amy asked.

“Is it the monster?” Pickles asked, staring over at the lightning brain. “Did it not work?”

The floor started to rumble, the vibration crawling up their legs, the crystal cracked all around them, the whole building started shaking, cracking, falling down around them.

“Out! Out, out out!” the Doctor yelled, herding everyone in front of him, the Trelwin led the way, loping like grayhounds.

Everyone ran out, only to emerge into red evening light, to find the whole bowl area cracking, faultlines radiating outward up the slopes, slabs of crystal-imbued ground jutting up from the pressure.

They fell and tumbled down the scree.

“What’s happening!” Amy yelled, over the thunder of the ground cracking open.

The Doctor smacked his forehead with one hand. “Turning off the ‘monster’ program must have destabilized the energy matrix in the underlying crystalline substructure.”

“What?” Erik yelled.

“Earthquake!” the Doctor yelled back.

They jumped as the black glass of the building ruptured and half the wall crashed to the ground behind them, shattering into huge chunks.

The entire crystal structure, and all its towers, started swaying, cracking and popping, grinding itself into fragments. Huge fissures ripped the ground outward, the land heaving and undulating like a nightmare fairground ride.

“RUN!”

They all scrambled, half launched away from the structure by tilting plates of ground.

The area right around the castle cracked and sank, the black building crumbling into a pit. The pit widened, edges crumbling and falling into an abyss, revealing huge veins of crystal in the sheer cliffs it left in its wake.

Everyone scrambled, the land shrieked. Nelda and Chitchi saved hunters from sliding backward into the chasm, their long arms snagging them and throwing them farther up the sudden incline.

The land crumbled behind them, seeming to chase them. The transport tilted with a scream of metal and tumbled into the abyss.

“Run! Run! Run!” the Doctor kept yelling, scrambling and pulling Amy and Rory up after him. Pushing Bill and Erik ahead of him, looking to the side to see Darvish plant his ax in the tilted ground and use it to haul himself upward. Eula using his daggers as pitons beside him.

They ran, scrambling, uphill on what only minutes ago had been level ground. Sand and dust slid downward, making footing treacherous. Plants screamed as roots tore out of the soil, trees toppled, a fluffy ‘Nuisance’ tumbled down into the abyss like a tumbleweed, wailing like a siren.

A giant redwood screamed as its roots tore out of the ground, it twisted on its bole and bore down on them, like a giant brush ready to sweep them away. At the last minute the branches hit above them, and bounced, the entire giant tree arching over them, like a meteor made of branches, limbs reaching toward them. It crashed into the slope below them, jarring them, and slid, screeching, out of sight.

The very land crumbled from under their feet.

They hauled themselves to level ground and ran, hearts pumping, lungs tearing in their chest, as the collapsing ground raced after them like a hungry god.

They saw the Herbivore lying on its own at the edge of the jungle, no apparitions marked the boundary of a fence. They dove into the trees, and ran, batting and pulling at swaying, trembling ferns as shockwaves undulated through the forest ahead of them.

The world was one huge bass crescendo. So loud they couldn’t hear themselves screaming, only feel the vibration of their throats.

Then it stopped.

The trees stopped swaying, the ferns stopped whipping. Suddenly screeching, terrified birds were audible. The world stilled, the occasional loud crash of individual boulders, the slither of sand, an underlying groaning, like the lament of a planet-sized pregnant woman moaned under their feet.

Slowly fading away.

“Is everyone all right?” Darvish yelled in his trollish voice.

Everyone looked around, their ears ringing. They all checked that they were all there. Weapons had been discarded in their scramble. There were a proliferation of cuts and bruises and scrapes, but everyone seemed to be present.

Amy looked up, even Zeke and Nelda and Chitchi had returned to the haven of the trees, now that they weren’t swaying.

“George! Garon!” Eldon suddenly yelled. He ran back the way they’d come, yelling for his brothers. The others followed, hearts leaping back into their throats.

Garon found the boulders his brothers had been sheltering under. The small twisted tree lay on its side, the boulders had shifted, there was no cave, no crevice, only a solid pile of collapsed stone.

“NO!” Eldon screamed. He ran toward the stones. The others ran with him, Amy scanned the ground for blood.

“Here!” a voice yelled out of the ferns.

Garon stood up, streaked with dirt, with stone chips in his hair. “We’re over here!”

Eldon ran and grabbed his brother. The two clasped tightly to each other, shaking, tears streaming down their cheeks.

“Where’s George?”

“Here,” Garon waved down at the ferns beside him. “I had to drag him out when the ground started shaking.” The twins knelt down to check on their triplet.

Everyone else stood and stared.

Where the line of the fence had stood was now the edge of a vast chasm. It looked like the caldera of a volcano. A perfectly circular subsidence that came right up to the edge of the fence and stopped.

For the first time in days they could see sky. The setting sun hung in the distance, a disc of brilliant tangerine, throwing its bloody light over the scene.

Crystal shards glinted among the stones, trees poked out of the landslide at drunken angles. There, a giant deer limped its way slowly upward across huge broken chunks of land.

“Well,” Darvish leaned on his ax, “I’d say the monster is now definitely dead.”

“It’s a shame,” the Doctor said quietly, staring down into the devastation with a melancholy expression.

Everyone else turned to stare at him.

He looked back. “What?” He waved a hand at the rubble. “That was the last of a once mighty and amazing civilization.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “One less Wonder in the universe.”

“Yes, well, not to be blunt, Doctor. But good riddance,” Erik said. He hefted his gun that he had somehow managed to keep hold of. “This world has dangers enough.”

The Doctor looked up into the trees. The Trelwins stared out over the sinkhole with unfathomable eyes. Then they turned their backs on it and swung away.


	31. Epilogue

It took them three days to return to the home tree.

They stopped at the mine to put George into Arnoff’s capable hands, and continued immediately, saying their goodbyes and leaving Darvish and the Brothers to make their reports.

They arrived back at the home tree late at night. Everyone was already asleep, but Sondherson and Emma greeted them and hustled them back up the tree. Fortunately, since they had arrived by shuttle, they didn’t have to climb the whole tree back up.

They cleaned up in Emma’s apartment, ate a quick meal that Jake had left out for them, and climbed into their biologist assigned cubby holes and slept for twelve hours straight. Even the Doctor.

—————

They reconvened in Sondherson’s office the next morning.

“I’ve already got the report from Erik and his crew, so now I’d like to hear your version,” Sondherson said as they all sat down.

Rory and Amy looked at each other, then looked at the Doctor.

“Well,” he began.

It didn’t take long to tell, with all the actual experience stripped off.

“So you reprogrammed an ancient alien device,” Sondherson clarified. “How?”

“I couldn’t get in from the outside, I’m assuming the Hanaii had the same problem and that’s why the world and the Trelwin ended up in this situation.” The Doctor waved a hand around to indicate the whole planet and its history. “But it had had to open up to incorporate humans into its program. So while it scanned _me_ , I reprogrammed _it_.”

“Using Zeke as a translator,” Sondherson observed.

The Doctor nodded. “Hanaii programming is fascinatingly complex, but I’d have had no hope without Zeke acting as my interface.”

Sondherson glanced out his window. “So they’ve become telepathic now.” Sondherson rubbed his jaw. “That will make it easier to communicate with them, I guess.”

The Doctor shook his head.

“No?” Sondherson said, looking a bit shellshocked.

“The telepathy was a side effect of the magnetic vortex in the zone. Outside that location they’re just Trelwins.”

“But,” Rory said. “Now that the monster isn’t suppressing them, won’t they grow back into Hanaii again?”

The Doctor shook his head. “They’ve evolved. The time of the Hanaii is over. Although,” he turned to Sondherson, “you’re lucky enough to still be able to enjoy the benefits of their genius.”

“How so?” Sondherson asked.

“A stable wormhole connecting this isolated star system directly to a well populated part of the universe?” the Doctor said. “It's almost surely artificial. And I’d be surprised if you aren’t using the home trees for the very purpose they were engineered for.”

Sondherson’s eyebrows popped up. “They were engineered?” He looked around at his home, as if seeing the wood for the first time.

The Doctor grinned. “The Trelwin might not be Hanaii anymore, but, if you’re lucky, in a few generations your world will have _two_ intelligent races. What they become now, will depend on you, and them,” the Doctor waved a hand out the window. They all leaned to look.

Outside, Nelda was surrounded by a group of human children on the edge of the platform, a group of Trelwin children perched in the branches of the tree. She was teaching them sign language.

—————

“Well, I definitely understand now why you choose to live in the trees,” Rory said. They’d gathered around the window, watching Nelda. Rory’s eyes drifted beyond the platform, beyond the branches to the mass of sweltering jungle far below.

A cool breeze blew in the window, the tree leaves rustled, puffy white clouds floated by beneath them.

Deran turned and smiled at him for that new understanding. “And with the monster destroyed, we’re that much safer,” Deran said.

“It isn’t,” the Doctor said in a low voice from behind them.

Sondherson whipped around. “But you said...”

“It’s been rendered harmless,” the Doctor continued quietly, unusually serious. “It’s been reprogrammed and its transmission base destroyed, but it still exists.”

“But...” said Rory.

“How?” Amy demanded.

He looked at them. “I turned back for a last look as we were leaving. I saw the flash of it, hanging over the destruction. It was masked by the setting sun, I don’t think anyone else saw.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Sondherson asked.

The Doctor put his hands in his pockets. “I thought someone should know. As I told Erik, it’s Hanaii technology, it’s tied into the planet’s energy field, it will exist as long as the planet does. It will continue to monitor the planet, watching it evolve, but it can no longer act.

“But you don’t want people stumbling on it and messing with it when they don’t know what they’re doing.” He ignored Amy and Rory’s wry glance. “Best to let it fade back into legend. But it’s always best to have _someone_ who knows all the facts. Think of it as an inheritance.”

Abruptly his mood changed, he grinned and clapped his hands, bouncing on his toes. “Now!” his eyebrows bobbed up, eyes gleaming. “About my Tardis!”

—————

“Heave!”

The Doctor, in his shirtsleeves and braces, sleeves rolled up, stood on the overarching root over the spring fed pool at the base of the tree. The air smelled of moss and cold water and bright growing things as the leaves rustled in the shade.

Twenty volunteers manned a double row of ropes looped over the root and connecting down to the Tardis lying 25 feet down on the bottom of the crystal clear pool.

“Heave!” the Doctor yelled again, waving his arms up like a conductor, or a pharaoh raising the pyramids. His “slaves” pulled, the water swelled and the Tardis started to rise.

Rory, farther along the root shook his head. “Erik’s going to shove him in if he keeps doing that,” he commented. Amy just grinned beside him.

With the volunteers muscle power, and the Doctor’s “direction” they hauled the Tardis up from its sandy, watery rest. They looped a rope around the ropes holding it up, and with half the volunteers adding slack, and the other half pulling forward, they pulled the Tardis sideways onto the beach.

They threw a rope around the lantern on top, and with others pushing on the bottom edge, they tilted her up and rocked her to a stand on the verge, water streaming off her.

The Doctor clapped like a child and skittered over and hugged his faithful machine, yelling thank you’s and appreciation to the applauding workers.

He nipped inside to check the systems.

Rory sidled up to Erik, who’d actually orchestrated the rescue, with Sondherson providing the resources. Their original safari team was ranged around them, providing protection.

“If it’s all the same to you, Erik,” Rory said quietly. “I’d rather not have the Doctor pilot the Tardis back up the tree, there’s no telling where we’d end up. And I’d really like to make it to the party tonight.”

Amy stood behind him, still dressed in Erik’s sister’s clothes. “Really,” Amy nodded, “He’s a terrible pilot.”

The Doctor came whirling out of the Tardis, he patted the wooden door. “All ship shape and Bristol fashion.” He clapped his hands. “Just a quick hop upstairs and we’ll be set. We can even load everybody up and take everyone in one go!” he offered magnanimously, waving toward his very small and cramped vehicle. Smiling maniacally.

Erik stared at him for a second, then flicked his eyes over the dilapidated box. He walked over and slung a heavy, beefy arm over the Time Lord’s shoulders. “In this case, Doctor, it would be our honor to haul your transport pod up the tree ourselves. Think of it as a thank you for all you’ve done for us.” He started herding the Doctor away, back toward the tree.

“Oh, but it’s no trouble,” the Doctor insisted. “I’d be happy to...”

“No, no, I insist,” Erik interrupted him, waving one large hand surreptitiously behind his back. Bill grinned and started organizing everyone to transport the Tardis. “It’s the least we can do,” Erik declared.

Despite the Doctor’s protests, Erik had the Tardis and everyone hauled up the tree in the emergency lifts.

The incongruous blue box rose majestically past every level and platform, people gathered and pointed and waved. The Doctor waved cheerfully back.

The volunteers jockeyed the Tardis through the upper branches, and set it in pride of place at the far edge of the main platform outside the visitor’s domicile.

Emma and Sondherson stood on the platform. Sondherson stared at the old fashioned blue box with its wood panels and chipped paint. “ _That’s_ your transport?” he asked, incredulously.

Axel tipped his straw hat back on his weathered head. “You’re braver than you look.”

—————

That afternoon there was a huge celebration. It was kicked off by the official declaration that there had been no new monster incidents since the safari group had reported the complex destroyed five days earlier. There was a huge cheer.

Up on the main platform in front of the visitor’s hall, the party was in full swing. The atrium was decorated with streamers and bunting, flowery garlands graced every rail and rope line. Barrels and kegs of mead and wine were broached, and tables groaned under the weight of food.

Everyone called back and forth to each other, streamers of confetti were popped and fell down to tangle on branches and platform edges.

Even the Trelwins joined in, stealing treats off the tables and watching the excitement from the treelimbs, bouncing. The Doctor saw a brown Trelwin he thought was Chitchi swing down and swipe a cupcake off the sideboard, swing back into the branches and offer it to a very pretty gold and brown splotched Trelwin, who shared it with him.

A local orchestra played lively music and everyone clapped and danced. Jake was taking a turn at some cumbersome instrument that required cranking a handle and playing keys and made a jolly wheezing sound.

Aaron danced with Nelda, although it was more like him holding her long white arms up high and kicking his feet to each side of her, as she crouched in front of him and swayed to the music. Erik and his mother swooped by in a waltz, clearing a path across the dance floor, massive and light on their feet. And Zeke danced with anyone who would turn to face him, his arms waving high over his head, hands lobbed forward at the wrists, his head bobbing.

“I can’t _believe_ you taught him that dance,” Amy said, watching as Cindy lifted her hands up and imitated the elderly Trelwin.

“Why not? He’s a natural!” the Doctor grinned, holding his arms out, beaming.

Rory walked up, holding up a platter of local delicacies over the heads of the dancers and dashing children alike.

“Blueberry fudge!” the Doctor pounced.

“Hey!” Rory swiveled his plate away, not fast enough. “Get your own.”

—————

Everyone mingled, talked, laughed and danced. The people who had survived the monster wore large purple flowers in their hair. Amy’s clashed horribly with her red locks. She danced a dance with Erik, while Bill manhandled Rory around the dancefloor.

The Doctor boogied with Cindy, but was then cut in on when Axel tapped him on the shoulder.

Aaron cornered the Doctor for a discussion of Hanaii technology that had all the people around them gradually giving them a wider and wider berth.

All the Safari members were stopped again and again to retell the story, answer questions, and clarify facts. The story was already becoming legend.

—————

Things eventually wound down. The Doctor, Amy, and Rory hugged Cindy and Emma goodbye before the grandmother took her exhausted little one off to bed. Jake tossed them a jaunty salute before following. They thanked Sondherson for his hospitality. And Axel for his tour of the farms.

The Doctor nodded rather uncomfortably to Erik. “See?” he said, expansively. “No paperwork!”

Erik scowled at him then turned to Sondherson. “You didn't make _him_ fill out a report in triplicate?”

Sondherson just threw his hands in the air and shook his head in a hopeless “don't ask” gesture. They followed Erik's family into the visitor's quarters.

The band played one last number, then packed up and left. The last few lingering couples finished their dances and filtered away. The Trelwins slumped in the crooks of the branches, already asleep. People wandered off to their homes, replete.

Doors closed, hails faded away, and silent night descended on the tree. Party debris littered the platform as the Doctor, Amy and Rory stole away to the Tardis.

Amy and Rory went inside, looking forward to sleeping in their own beds again. The Doctor lingered in the doorway, looking out at the sylvan night, hearing the rustle of the leaves, the cool breeze swirling through the atrium, the silver shine of moonlight on the giant branches.

“It’s a lovely world. I’ll be sorry to leaf.”

“I _heard_ that!” Amy yelled from inside.

The Doctor grinned and stepped back. He shut the door.

And the Tardis slipped quietly away.

 

~The End~

* * *

_For more stories by this author click[here](http://archiveofourown.org/users/betawho/works)._  
 _This story took me three years to write. If you enjoyed the story, please take a couple of minutes to leave a review in the box below, it's the only way I know if people liked it and what they think of it._


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